Perch on bamboo fly rod, note the Italian made semi automatic fly reel. The ATP 37 aluminum.
Bluegill on The Beulah Switch fly rod.
Bass on a switch fly rod.
Turtes and bird enjoying the late afternoon sun.
Switch fly rod with a big Golden Shiner.
Golden Shiners:
Though it has been known to reach lengths of 30 cm (12 in), in the
wild the golden shiner is usually between 7.5 and 12.5 cm (3 to 5
inches) long. The body is laterally compressed (deep-bodied). The back
is dark green or olive, and the belly is a silvery white. The sides are
silver in smaller individuals, but golden in larger ones. There can be a
faint dusky stripe along the sides. The anal fin is large and has 8-19
rays, while the dorsal fin comprises almost always 8 rays. Scales are
relatively large and easily lost when the fish is handled. The mouth is
small and upturned. Two characteristics can distinguish the golden
shiner from all other minnows: (1) the
lateral line
has a pronounced downward curve, with its lowest point just above the
pelvic fins; and (2) there is a fleshy keel lacking scales on the belly
between the pelvic fins and the base of the anal fin. The lack of scales
on the keel is important to differentiate the golden shiner from the
very similar-looking rudd,
Scardinius erythrophtalmus, a European species that has been introduced in a few places in North America.
[1] The rudd also has a midventral keel, but that keel bears scales. Golden shiner and rudd can in fact hybridize
[2] and hybrids have a few scales on their midventral keel.
Distribution
The golden shiner is found throughout the eastern half of North
America, north to the St Lawrence River, Great Lakes, and Lake Winnipeg,
and west to the Dakotas and Texas. Because of its use as bait, it has
also been introduced in many places outside this native range.
[3]
Habitat
Golden shiners prefer quiet waters and are therefore found in lakes,
ponds, sloughs, and ditches. They are sometimes found in the quietest
parts of rivers. They like weedy areas. They are fairly tolerant of
pollution, turbidity, and low oxygen content. They can also tolerate
temperatures as high as
40 °C (104 °F) which is unusually high for a North American minnow.
[4]
Diet
Golden shiners are omnivorous. They eat
zooplankton,
insects, plants, and algae. They can feed at the surface, in mid-water,
or at the bottom. They can locate prey visually, or filter-feed on
high-density zooplankton without resorting to visual cues.
[5] They are themselves food for all manner of game fish such as
trout and
bass, hence their popularity as bait fish.
Reproduction
In the southern parts of their range, golden shiners can start
reproducing at 1 year of age; in Canada, first breeding is more commonly
at 3 years of age. Females lay up to 200,000 sticky eggs each amid
vegetation. There is no parental care. Occasionally, like a few other
minnows, golden shiners can deposit their eggs in the occupied nests of
pumpkinseed,
largemouth bass or
bowfin (the latter two, ironically, can be predators of shiners).
[6] This behaviour is called egg dumping and resembles the
brood parasitism
of birds such as cuckoos, inasmuch as the shiner eggs will benefit from
the parental care that pumpkinseed, largemouth bass, and bowfin provide
to the content of their nests. As opposed to parasitism by cuckoos,
however, the parent's eggs do not suffer from the presence of parasitic
eggs, and may actually benefit from a dilution effect when predators
attack the brood.
[7]
Behaviour
Golden shiners live in large groups (
shoals)
that roam widely. Several laboratory studies have shown that the
movements of a shoal can be determined by a minority of individuals at
the front of it. For example, an individual that knows when and where
food is available within a large tank can lead many other fish to the
right place at the right time of day.
[8]
If all fish have similar knowledge, there is still a tendency for some
individuals to be found always at the front of a moving shoal, possibly
because they are intrinsically hungrier and more motivated to find food.
[9]
Small fish are also found more often at the front of a shoal than
larger fish, again possibly because they are more motivated to find
food.
[10]
Like other minnows, golden shiners are sensitive to the release of an alarm substance, or
Schreckstoff,
contained within special skin cells. If a predator catches and bites
into a minnow, the skin is broken, the substance is released, and other
minnows in the vicinity can detect the substance and react to it by
leaving the area. The substance can also survive intact in the feces of a
predator, and minnows can thus detect the presence of a minnow-eating
predator through the presence of its feces. In the laboratory, golden
shiners were found to react strongly to water that contained feces from
snakes that had eaten other golden shiners, but not nearly as much to
water laden with feces from snakes that had eaten green swordtails, a
fish that does not possess an alarm substance.
[11]
Like other fishes, golden shiners have a good daily time sense and can
anticipate the arrival of food when this food is made available at the
same time of the day or night.
[12] They can also do this when there is more than one mealtime a day.
[13]
This anticipation is expressed as swimming and positioning towards the
food source, and other naive individuals can perceive this and join the
anticipating fish in the hope of sharing its food.
[14]
Golden shiners are also capable of time-place learning (associating
different places with different times of day). They can be taught to
feed in one part of an aquarium in the morning and a different part in
the afternoon; or to feed in one part in the morning, a different part
at mid-day, and back to the first part in the afternoon.
