Native Fish for the Home Aquarium

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You'll improve your fish finding if you invite one or more companions along on your trips. In most situations, three people make an ideal sampling crew. Later, when you're collecting "for keeps," a fourth person can be employed to help handle buckets and other equipment. If at all possible, invite someone who already knows the local fish and waters. But don't be discouraged if you have to go it alone: There's plenty that a lone collector can do.

The basic fish-collecting tool is the seine, which is no more than a long piece of netting with a series of floats along one edge and lead weights along the other. In use, it's drawn through the water with the weighted lead line on the bottom and the float line up (attaching each end of the seine to a pole makes this task easier).

Seines come in all lengths and in a variety of depths and mesh sizes. Ideally, your seine should be a third longer than the greatest width of the body of water to be seined, and a third deeper than the area to be covered. Of course, as seines get bigger, some practical limits tend to be reached. Aquarium hobbyists usually use seines 25 feet long or less. Four feet is about the right depth for most situations that you're likely to encounter.

You'll be after small fish, so choose a small mesh size . . . perhaps an eighth of an inch. For light use in relatively snag-free water, the type of netting sold as "Common Sense" will be satisfactory. For heavier or rougher use, you'll need to go to the more expensive knotted netting. Since it's good to be able to adjust the weight of the lead line (heavier for fast or deep water, lighter for soft bottoms), a small supply of clamp-on weights is useful.

Ordinarily, seining is a two-person operation, and a third helper will prove handy . . . particularly for freeing the lead line when it catches on obstructions. However, a short seine (say, up to five feet long) can be operated by one person as a "push seine." Just hold the end poles crossed in your hands to form a triangular net with the apex at your hands, and move forward from deep into shallow water. Seining technique could be the subject of a long discussion, but a little experience will teach you the best ways to set, haul, beach, and lift seines.

Other types of collecting gear are designed for use by one person. The umbrella net is most effective in standing or relatively slowmoving water . . . particularly when operated from sites such as docks, which afford an elevated vantage point. The extended net is simply sunk to the bottom and then lifted as rapidly as possible when the fish swim over it. Often some form of bait, such as bread crumbs, is used to lure fish over the net.

You can use a hand-held dip net in weed beds, beneath undercut banks, and in other confined situations. The nets most commonly uvailable for this purpose are bait dealers' scap nets. However, because these have very shallow bags, they will often allow fish to leap out. Lightweight aluminum frames are less work to use, but if you'll be collecting around weeds, a heavier frame would be better. The fish you pursue may not be large, but you'll be amazed at the weight of the vegetation that'll fill your net. In addition to longhandled dip nets, a few aquarium nets will be handy for pursuit of individual fish in confined areas, as well as for handling them after their capture.

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