Which Dairy Creek ?
The one in Washington County has and is being hurt by agricultural runoff yet it still fights back.
I believe that the cutts are the real McCoy (natives) and I could not kill one.
They would be fun to mess with, though.
The one in Washington County - and it's a no-kill fishery anyway, along with no bait. It really does fight back - and the native cutts in there are feisty for their size - it's one of my go-to small streams, along with Gales and a couple others I don't want to name (since fishing pressure on the small streams already is as high as they can probably safely handle)
The fish in Dairy Creek (Wa Co) aren't big - but they have spunk. There's a lot of non-native fishes in the creek - big carp, bullheads, smallies, largemouth, a host of panfishes, squawfish, and as Tyler (who is my nephew) posted - some aquarium fishes. It seems that at least one (probably more than one) person didn't want/couldn't keep their aquarium and they just dumped the fish into the creek. Have caught a few fish that really don't belong in that water.
Every winter the creek floods, and banks along some of the more developed sections erode, and it is sometimes late june before the water starts clearing up. This year, in September even after a long dry spell, the creek was still stained and fairly low visibility
The fishing is a bit better when the water is clearer.
These little neighborhood creeks hold a special place for me - and I really wish more people appreciated the creeks and what they mean - instead of treating them like just another ditch to throw their nasties into.
ray:
