Sheepshead Minnows

      My wife and I were fortunate to visit with some good friends at their vacation home on the Nassawadox Creek on the Eastern Shore of Virginia over the extended week-end of November 9th through November 12th.  The weather was spectacular, cold in the mornings though hitting the sixties in the afternoon.  Great weather for what could have been at that time.

Rick's fishin boat, November 10th, 2012

      The first morning of fishing, we caught four just legal rockfish, and took them back to the house for breakfast.

Couldn't be any fresher

      Rick filleted the fish, and we baited two crab pots with fish heads, and the minnow trap with fish innards.  We only saw two undersized crabs in the pots.  They were put back to grow bigger and fatter for next year.  The minnow trap had quite a lot of minnows, mostly mummichogs, but also a few sheepshead minnows, Cyprinodon variegatus.  I had seen sheepshead minnows in breeding color maybe 15 years ago, and will never forget the brilliant blue and orange colors on the courting males.  I let all of the mummichogs go free on Sunday, removed the bait, and returned the trap to the creek with seven sheepshead minnows, two of which appeared to be females.  On Monday when I pulled the trap to get ready for an early return trip on Tuesday, I was surprised to find the non baited trap with nearly fifty fish!  All of the new fish being mummichogs.  If they were so insistent upon being caught, I decided I should keep a few.  Unfortunately one of the female sheepshead minnows had found her way out of the trap.  So six sheepshead minnows and five mummichogs spent the night in a five gallon bucket, then survived the 3 and 1/2 hour drive home the next day.
      I mixed up water with aquarium sea salt at 1/2 strength.  The sheepshead minnows all did fine, and have settled into their new digs quite nicely.

Female on the left with black spot on her dorsal fin

      The fish are actually prettier than I expected, with a couple of the males showing some faint blue and orange coloration.  They are sometimes known as pupfish, and they remind me of littles puppies as they rush to the front of the tank hoping for some food.  They apparently will eat anything, and days ago wiped out the persistent growth of hair algae in this tank.  I have since been gathering more of this dreaded algae from other tanks, and will soon exhaust my supply.  I am thinking about acclimating a couple of the males to fresh water to see if they can clean up some of my other tanks.  I will be researching and experimenting with trying to get the fish to spawn.  I will also look forward to my next collection trip to acquire some additional females.  They have been a lot of fun so far.