Midwest fish kill

About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon were killed in Iowa last week as water temperatures reached 97 degrees. Nebraska fishery officials said they've seen thousands of dead sturgeon, catfish, carp, and other species in the Lower Platte River, including the endangered pallid sturgeon. And biologists in Illinois said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of large- and smallmouth bass and channel catfish and is threatening the population of the greater redhorse fish, a state-endangered species.

Let's remember that these are natural occurrences, and as long as men don't meddle too much with the system now, the fish will come back as they should.

Jose Wejebe killed in plane crash

Oh no!

I just found out about this tragic event... Jose Wejebe, host of one of my favorite tv programs "Spanish Fly", was killed in a plane crash!!

New book on Loaches

Loaches are an always entertaining, often challenging group of fishes to keep. I just picked up the new book published by the folks at the website Loaches Online (Killer site I highly recommend!) titled, Loaches, Natural History and Aquarium Care and will let you know what I think of it as soon as I can finish reading it.

Fishing as a varsity sport!

I'm all for fishing as a varsity sport, it's a lot of work and takes skill to be a consistently good fisherman, and there's a decent living to be made as a professional.

The state of Kentucky recently joined Illinois and Tennessee by adding bass fishing as a high school varsity sport. The lakes, rivers and streams of South Carolina have always been a haven for anglers and record-breaking catches, but will young anglers soon have a chance to win a high school state championship?

Currently South Carolina has 11 public high schools with bass fishing clubs and the goal is to reach at least 16. The schools can then petition to form bass fishing as a varsity sport and more students who may not already participate in an extra-curricular activity get a chance to be a part of a team and compete for a state championship. Not only that, but it will hopefully foster a lifelong love of the sport.

Form a bass fishing club at your school and you can also compete in tournaments around South Carolina. Clubs currently compete in inter-squad tournaments, against other schools as well as fish The Bass Federation of SC Junior Championship and other Student Angler Federation High School Tournaments.

What is a "Community Tank" of fish?

Here's some very good advice from our newest link pal, The Skeptical Aquarist on assembling a true community fish tank.

The results generally don't rise above a harmless menagerie, but they will normally lack any ecological significance. Cichlid tanks especially seem to be assembled on the basis of "Can this new one hold its own?" An increasingly tense mosh pit is added to, one new arrival at a time — "Can I fit one more in?" — until finally mayhem breaks out.

Fresh sardines!

Sardines are one of my favorite fish to eat, and the other day I found myself at Lotus market in the Strip district of Pittsburgh (so-named for it's shape, not activity!) and discovered that this was one of the best Asian markets I've ever seen! There's more story I'll tell in the future, like the fact that I tried my first Durian fruit (yum!), but for now I wanted to show you the long sought after and finally discovered treat I had. These are fresh sardines! I've been wanting to try fresh for years but not made th eserious effort to find them until now. Truly, they were a huge step in taste above the canned version. On the advice of my friend who grew up eating them fresh, I simply gutted them, and pan fried them in a bit of olive oil with a touch of salt, pepper and garlic.

They were great! They're really bony, and that made me a bit paranoid, but the bones proved no problem when chewed enough, and I'm one very prone to choking on fish bones. They were great and I recommend them to anyone who hasn't yet tried them. Next time my plan is to steam them along with some veggies. :)