Great info

[Dan]

Saw this over at Andrew's site, http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?showtopic=3670&st=0



This guy named nate stopped by and had some real good info on a good 20 rivers, creeks in Illinois. You have to register to read this post but well worth it:)


heres a sample:


Date: September 11, 2007
Location: DesPlaines River in Lockport, IL. About 500m upstream of the SR 7 bridge.
Water Level: Water levels were at normal levels for this time of year. Average depth of the river was 1.7 m. The river was really wide too. Some parts were over 200m across.
Water Quality: D.O.: 8.57 mg/L – Cond.: 724 Us/cm. Very turbid water with lots of siltation. At this point on the river, it was wide and slow moving.
Water Temp.: 22.16*C
Substrate: Lots of flooded timber along the shoreline. Muck and detritus covered the bottom towards the middle of the river. There were macrophytes in the marshy parts. Cement and cobble was the structure near the shoreline as well.
Collected:
Bowfin (Amia calva) - we got one large Bowfin near some flooded timber in a small oxbow that was at the widest part of the river.
Gizzard Shad (Dorosoma cepedianum) - only a few were caught. A lot more were seen, but the river was so wide that when the fish were shocked they would run away from the boat. These could have been the most abundant fish in the area, but with our methods of capture, we weren’t able to get to them.
Hornyhead Chub (Nocomis biguttatus) – only a few small ones were caught near some of the flooded timber along the shoreline.
Emerald Shiner (Notropis atherinoides) – one was caught. They are definitely more abundant than what our sample showed. It is difficult to sample the middle of the river (probably where these fish were in more numbers) because our electrical field only has so much range.
Sand Shiner (Notropis stramineus stramineus) – a few were caught here.
Spotfin Shiner (Cyprinella spiloptera) – only a few were caught but undoubtedly they were one of the more common fish in this river.
Fathead Minnow (Pimephales promelas)
Bluntnose Minnow (Pimephales notatus) – we collected more of these than any other fish in this sample.
Northern Quillback (Carpiodes cyprinus cyprinus) - an important identifying characteristic of this species of sucker is the lack of “nipple” on the bottom part of its lip. Also, the exaggerated first few spines of the dorsal fin, giving it the “quill” look. We only caught one here.
Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) - only one small one was found. Its barbs were eroded too. This was one of the anomalies we were checking for in the fish.
Western Mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis affinis) – only a few were sampled here.
Blackstripe Topminnow (Fundulus notatus) – more common than our sample indicated. We only caught a few, but others could be seen swimming about seemingly unaffected by the electrical current.
Black Crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus) - a few very nice sized ones were caught here near the flooded timber, although they were few and far between.
Northern Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides salmoides) – only a few small ones were found. This was somewhat surprising considering there seemed to be suitable habitat for these fish.
Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus)
Bluegill Sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus macrochirus)
Orangespotted Sunfish (Lepomis humilis)

Notes: Electrofished via a boat here. 500m were sampled. Brian was doing the netting and said that he also saw Northern Pike and Common Carp, but he couldn’t quite catch them. It was interesting to see the marshy area with flooded timber because it held a nice sized Bowfin. As more and more types of these areas are drained for development, these fish become rarer and rarer. This is especially true in the Chicagoland area.