What a busy season! We pushed hard to complete the fieldwork we had planned for the year before cold water, leaves and the holidays caught up to us! Weather was pretty cooperative, but cold water came a bit earlier this year. It's not just that we shudder at snorkeling in cold water, but many of the fish go to cover in the cold and can be very difficult to find at all! And, then, there's the leaf litter!

So, snorkeling season is probably done. We do, however, have some more field work to complete. Collection of broodstock of several species has yet to be completed. But, for the ones we still need, we should still be able to get out.

I just want to cover some of the more exciting news of the season. We continue to see very promising trends in the fishes we have worked for so many years to reestablish into Abrams Creek. We have essentially finished comprehensive stocking in Abrams. In fact, it's been nearly 10 years since we have stocked more than just a handful of our fish there! For several years since then, we continued to stock a few specimens of the two madtoms (smoky and yellowfin) and the Citico (formerly duskytail) darter in an attempt to facilitate limited gene flow from Citico (source population) to Abrams Creek.

Students from Tennessee Tech are also involved in some valuable studies designed to get a handle on abundance, habitat preference, survivorship and dispersal of the reintroduced fish. We have been supplying fish to then when needed.

Even in the absence of regular stocking, we continue to see good numbers of the darter and both madtoms! More and more suitable habitat within Abrams is now occupied by one or more of these imperiled fishes!

And, we are seeing similar results in the Tellico River! Smoky madtoms, in particular, are doing quite well in some areas of the river. We are seeing reproduction and recruitment in both madtoms and the Citico darter! We are even seeing some signs of reproduction in the spotfin chub. It is still not clear if there will ultimately be sufficient habitat in Tellico to support this highly specialized minnow!

Also concerning the spotfin chubs, we are involved in a restoration effort of this species in Shoal Creek in south-central Tennessee and northern Alabama. We are still fairly early in the game here. Our surveys tell us that there is an abundance of suitable habitat in Shoal Creek for the spotfins. In fact, there's so much good looking habitat that finding our fish post release, is a bit like the old needle in a haystack! If you can imagine hundreds to thousands of small minnows schooling over the extensive bedrock flats....all "acting" a bit like spotfin chub....well, let's just say it can be difficult to find our fish! But, we have! We have definitely seen some of them here and there. Our hope is that one of these years, they will reach a threshold number, start readily finding one another and spawning. Hopefully when they reach that point, we will be able to find them more easily!

In addition to the spotfins, we are also working to restore the Endangered boulder darterin Shoal Creek. We determined that there was also ample, suitable habitat in Shoal Creek for boulder darters. We have almost always been able to locate a few of our stocked fish in the general vicinity of the release sites. Now, however, we are seeing more of them, often several age classes. There appears to be little doubt that some of the fish we are seeing have been spawned there in Shoal Creek! This year, for the first time, we found a boulder darter more than three miles below the lowest stocking site! We feel like there is a high likelihood of success with these fish in Shoal Creek and look forward to the day when we can go out there and find these fish wherever good habitat exists!

If you haven't already done so, check out our Facebook link on the Home page. It's so much easier for us to post up photos and links there, and we tend to do so more often than we update the web site. It's a fun way to keep up with what's happening at CFI!

Here's hoping everyone has a happy holiday season! Best wishes from CFI.

J.R. Shute