2015 Year in Review

As no doubt you have noticed, we may have slacked off a bit on reporting our trips this year. Rest assured that we made many trips, and photographed many new species, however the work of documenting our progress fell to the wayside. Since I have been asked about this, I decided to do a quick summary of our fish adventures from 2015! Enjoy…

 

We started out in January looking for new places to collect:

january

 

We worked on some bluefin tuna sampling:

bluefinsamples2

 

bluefinsamples

 

In February we worked on collecting speckled trout cold stun event data:

troutdead3

 

troutdead2

 

troutdead

 

In March we had an article written about the site in a local magazine:

march

 

And people started fishing again!

march2

 

The shad started to run, and we began writing identification guides:

shad

 

shad2

 

And the yellow perch made a good showing:

yellow perch

 

In April we began an article on the infamous amberjack worms:

 

and we shot some video of sheepshead minnows mating:

and we caught some vividly colored rainwater killifish:

Rainwater Killifish - Lucania parva - Female
Rainwater Killifish – Lucania parva – Female

 

Rainwater Killifish - Lucania parva - Male
Rainwater Killifish – Lucania parva – Male

 

And we sampled a few new locations:

sample

 

 

In May we visited the Green Swamp:

greenswamp

 

Lined topminnow - Fundulus lineolatus
Lined topminnow – Fundulus lineolatus

 

Fishing really started to pick up:

jack

juvenile amberjack

dolphin

 

 

Common Dolphin - Coryphaena hippurus
Common Dolphin – Coryphaena hippurus – Juvenile

 

Permit - Trachinotus falcatus
Permit – Trachinotus falcatus – Juvenile

 

Greater Amberjack - Seriola dumerili
Greater Amberjack – Seriola dumerili – Juvenile

 

and encountered all of the commonly caught Lepomis species in the Trent River:

Sunfishes of North Carolina
Top to bottom: Warmouth (Lepomis gulosus), Redbreast Sunfish (Lepomis auritus), Redear Sunfish (Lepomis microlophus), Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus), Pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus)

 

In June we began working on a flounder ID guide:

Paralichthys-albigutta

southernflounder

 

And did a little bit of microfishing:

microfishing2

 

microfishing3

 

microfishing

 

and a bit of deep sea fishing:

trolling2

 

trolling

 

weehoo

 

and lastly, did a bit of spearfishing:

spearfishing

 

spearfishing2

 

In July we did some backpack shocking on the Black River:

backpackshocking

backpackshocling2

backpackshocling3

 

 

 

 

We also managed a few shrimp trawl trips:

shrimpnet

 

Spotted Whiff - Citharichthys macrops
Spotted Whiff – Citharichthys macrops

 

Fringed flounder - Etropus crossotus
Fringed flounder – Etropus crossotus

 

American Harvestfish - Peprilus paru
American Harvestfish – Peprilus paru

 

Bay Whiff - Citharichthys spilopterus
Bay Whiff – Citharichthys spilopterus

 

In August we sampled seagrass beds and charter docks:

dockside3

 

docckside1

 

dockside2

 

seagrass2

 

seagrass

 

 

In September we did more dockside sampling:

tripletail

 

Spanish Mackerel - Scomberomorus maculatus
Spanish Mackerel – Scomberomorus maculatus

 

Spot - Leiostomus xanthurus
Spot – Leiostomus xanthurus

 

Pinfish – Lagodon rhomboides
Pinfish – Lagodon rhomboides

 

In October, we took a slight deviation from the normal routine, and sampled some sites in the Amazon:

amazon2

 

amazon

 

0029peru 0015peru killie3 apisto1reshoot 0074peru 0033peru

 

In November work kept us pretty busy, but we managed to sneak a few trips in:

castnet

(Yes there are actually fish in that little pond)

And lastly, in December we made it out a few more times:

striped bass

 

mummichog

 

croatan2

 

Swampfish - Chologaster cornuta
Swampfish – Chologaster cornuta

 

Eastern Mudminnow - Umbra pygmaea
Eastern Mudminnow – Umbra pygmaea

 

Pumpkinseed - Lepomis gibbosus
Pumpkinseed – Lepomis gibbosus

 

Bluehead Chub - Nocomis leptocephalus
Bluehead Chub – Nocomis leptocephalus

 

Green Sunfish - Lepomis cyanellus
Green Sunfish – Lepomis cyanellus

 

Creek Chub - Semotilus atromaculatus
Creek Chub – Semotilus atromaculatus

 

carp

 

We will do better keeping updates in 2016!

 

 

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