Fishes of the New R. - muskellunge and largemouth bass

Although perhaps a boring pick (at least if you're into non-game species) I wanted to post the largemouth bass, because it isn't typically found in many areas of a river like the New. Also, muskies are just awesome and I like this picture a lot!

Largemouth bass are habitat generalists, but usually do not tolerate current. They are most often found in lakes and slow moving sections of river, especially near aquatic vegetation. Even though swift current existed at our sampling site, the large amounts of submergent aquatic vegetation (elodea?) favors largemouth. The sampling site is less than 1/2 mile upstream from a large slow section, which is probably home to the source population for the bass shocked in our sampling site.

Muskies in the New River generally are found in stretches with a variety of depths, and large complexity of habitat patches such as vegetation, susbstrate type, and flow velocity (Brenden 2005). In general, muskies locations are positively correlated with submergent aquatic vegetation, though these relationships are usually in lakes. The New River may have sufficient habitat suitable to ambush-predation that association with vegetation is unnecessary (Brenden 2005). Water temperature and flow velocity may play a part in seasonal habitat selection, though with the present low flow and ideal water temperatures that may not have any bearing on depth selection on the day we sampled. As ambush feeders muskies will often select habitat near their preferred prey (castomids and large, soft-rayed fishes in general) once they reach >30 inches in length. As such they are often found in deeper sections of river, especially during low flows, warm weather, and during the day. As apex predators, however, they pretty much go where they please when they are on the prowl for food.