I’m Still Curious
This past weekend we were at an art show at WVU. It was one of those weekends that slips up on you and then you realize too late that there are too many things going on at the same time. For me it was the realization that youth hunting day was on the third weekend of November. I always thought it was on the second. I should have looked closer at the regulations beforehand. Blake and I were able to hunt a little. We went out early on Saturday morning before I needed to head back out to West Virginia. We didn't have any luck hunting. The life saver for me was that the boys had been up way past midnight the night before, watching the Mike Tyson fight, and so Blake was very welcoming to the idea of an afternoon nap. He also had a basketball game that evening and so hunting the whole afternoon wouldn't have been an option anyways. We also hunted for a couple of hours early Sunday only to strike out again. Regular rifle season comes in after Thanksgiving and I’m always more than happy to hunt with the kids and so he'll be getting more opportunities in a couple of weeks.
Apparently I wasn't the only one with a cluttered up schedule. The Mountaineers had a football game on Saturday, but whoever organizes and schedules the events at the University planned for the art show to be going on at the same time. If you've ever been close to a big university on game night, then you know that if you aren't going to the game you're better off staying home. And that's what everyone did, which didn't make for a great show. Well, not quite everyone stayed home. There were a couple of people milling around and enjoying the smaller crowd. The good part of a smaller crowd is that people will stop and chat.
An older gentleman stopped by our booth and was admiring one of my rainbow trout. We talked a little bit of fisherman language and then he asked if I'd ever made a Candy Darter. I was confused and told him that I'd never heard of one, that I'd heard of darter fish, but never a Candy Darter. He told me that his good friend had spent a good portion of his life studying and trying to discover why the Candy Darter was becoming very rare and difficult to locate.
So I looked them up. Apparently they've been cross breeding with other darters that have been introduced into the streams and so the colorful Candy Darter is being hybridized with other darters and losing its beauty.
Darters are little fish about the size of your pinky finger. They make up about 20% of the different species of freshwater fish in the trout streams in our area. If you grew up playing in the rivers and creeks around here in the mountains, you've probably seen them. Maybe you didn't realize how pretty they were because they were so small and unless you looked closely and studied them, you would just think that they were just normal little fish.
Darters are often studied as indicator fish. Their presence indicates that the ecosystem is in relatively good shape. When the little darters disappear it often means that something upstream is going awry. I remember taking the boys to a trout fishing clinic that was put on by Trout Unlimited. We got to follow along with a biologist that had an electric wand in one hand and a little net in the other. He stunned and netted numerous little fish in the little stream we were in. He would show them to the kids and then put them back in the water. I remember that he caught a pretty little rainbow trout that morning and numerous darters. If I remember correctly, they were Fantail Darters, but I don't remember any mention of a Candy Darter. It was a fun day!
Sometimes I like to think that someday, when I grow up, I'd like to be a fisheries or wildlife biologist of some sort. That's when I realize that I'm a little on the older side for that. But I'm still inquisitive and curious and love looking closely at the beauty of God's creation. When I looked up the Candy Darter, the pictures that I saw were magnificent. If you have the time, look them up. I think it would be fun to try and make one from glass.
As a glassblower, I realize that I'll never be able to copy the beauty of a real, live fish. But it sure is fun trying. And so the next chance that I get, I'm going to try making a Candy Darter.
