I like to fish for trout and trout like to eat bugs.

I don't know enough about bugs, so I took two wooden dowels about 4 feet long and stapled a section of nylon window screen between them.  

I figured with my seine net I could catch and hopefully identify the larvae of insects and that would help me in my quest for trout.

For the hell of it I decided to sample a vernal pool (not a place you would find trout).  A vernal pool is a depression in the ground that fills up with water in the spring.  It then usually dries out in the summer, so the denizens of a vernal pool are on a tight schedule.

The water was brown from the tannin of the leaves that lined the pool.  I was able to snag a good number of different species.  Caddis larvae, small snails, mosquito larvae, midge larvae, etc.

The surprise was creatures that were 1/2 to 1 inch in length.  They had pink gills and a slender body.  I later identified them as Fairy Shrimp.  

Attached File


Not my picture, but you can get an idea of what they look like.

I don't normally think of freshwater shrimp, let alone shrimp in New Hampshire.

You crazy kids probably know fairy shrimp by another name: Sea Monkeys.

May 16 is National Sea Monkey day, incidentally.

Go back and see if you can find their castle.

I respect their privacy.

Besides, the vernal pool was kinda icky.

Few more of them and you can have a nice shrimp cocktail

Neat!

Match the hatch.

Vernal pools = protected wetlands

Deal with those here in Ca in the housing business. Lots of protected mitigation land that has to be set aside to build houses in certain cities.

"Shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That, that’s about it.”

We EPA now.

Scuds are cool too....

Figures the EPA extended the denizens of the Vernal Pool a professional courtesy.

Bloodsuckers and bottom feeders have to stick together!

I have it on good authority that they can be taught tricks.

Where did you catch those?  I'd love to catch wild ones.  I'm fascinated by vernal pools.  The closest I've gotten is ordering eggs online from Arizona Fairy Shrimp.

I raised some Red-tail Fairy Shrimp in a 10-gallon aquarium, feeding them yeast and spirulina.  They produced eggs and that's what I'm seeing in your picture as well.  I don't know if they are viable as I dried out the aquarium once they died but I haven't rehydrated them yet to see if they will hatch.  The eggs can survive drying and UV light as in desert regions.  

More interesting than the shrimp are Daphnia since they reproduce exponentially with many generations being formed.  If you're interested in keeping Daphnia Magna, the largest of the species growing up to 5mm, I can mail you some in a month or so with instructions on how to raise them.  Shoot me an IM if interested.

The shrimp and Daphnia can't tolerate bubbles as they cause them to float to the surface, so you would never find them with trout in streams.

Daphnia Magna

COOL!  I found the fairy shrimp in a vernal pool in Litchfield, NH.  It was on the property of a school my wife teaches at.  If the temperatures are warm enough your chances of finding Fairy Shrimp in other vernal pools in NH are pretty good from what I have been reading.

The piece of window screen was big enough to catch the wee beasties before they could swim away.

The pool I caught them in was not very deep- 1 to 2 feet deep.  The water temperature was pretty high for this reason, so if you don't find much on your first try keep checking back.  

I guess ducks like to eat the shrimp, so if you see a mallard or two in the vernal pool it might be a good indicator that shrimp are present.

Great.  That's not too far from me.