Good catfish day

[Shane]

Headed with my friend from work Tim down south on the Masaka road last week. My goal was to sample an area several kilometers south of the equator that I had noted before. This area is interesting as it is a swamp area but very sandy with only a few odd palms to break up the scenery. The normal dense growth of papyrus is absent. Perhaps they do not do well in the sandy substrate.

It is still quit wet here so I was not expecting great collecting. A few kilometers south of Kampala we hit a major rain storm and our spirits were dampened. We continued south, passing over the equator (I say over as there is actually a line for the equator painted across the road), and managed to break through the rain storm. We hit the spot I had in mind and, after giving Tim a two minute seine operation primer, immediately set up to sample. A passing old man stopped to inspect us and Tim was able to use his Luganda language skills to confirm there were fishes in the pools. The old man then asked me for "chai" and Tim explained that the locals use the word chai (sweet tea) to signify money. We thanked the old man for his help and sent him on his way with an American cigarette.

Many of the pools in the area were completely covered with floating Salvinia which made collecting very difficult as the net would come up from every pull with several pounds of Salvinia in it which had to be sorted through to find any fishes. Fishes were very sparse, mainly Ctenopoma and small cichlids, but at least 3-4 spp of tadpole were very plentiful. I also managed to collect a five gallon bucket of the clean, white sand for use as substrate in my tanks.

Unfortunately the rain storm we had passed under moved south and caught us as we were collecting. Within minutes we were caught in a tropical downpour and soaked to the bone. Collecting became near impossible in the heavy rain as the various puddles we were collecting quickly started to swell in size and connect to each other making the area one large flooded plain. The rain was so heavy that it was actually difficult to see anything more than 30 feet away. After several unsuccessful seine pulls we decided to call it quits. I was wholly impressed by Tim, a non fish guy who had never been collecting, taking in stride the fact that I had him standing knee deep in an African swamp in a tropical downpour and never uttering a single complaint. Given the heavy rains we were unable to take any photos of the area but I do hope to return to it in the dry season.

With the storm clearly moving south we decided it best to head back north. We again passed under the storm and just past the equator were greeted by clear sunny skies. We decided to hit a papyrus swamp just north of the equator that I have collected several times. Sampling here was good turning up two barb spp, Ctenopoma, several small cichlids, killies and the catch of the day... two large Clarias! I brought back four pretty killies, a couple of Ctenopoma, and the Clarias.

I am still working to identify the Clarias and will get some in tank photos of them soonest for ID purposes. The killies also turned out to be a different sp that I had not encountered before.

Still soaked, and now with worn out arms and scratched up legs, we packed up the catch and returned to Kampala.

-Shane

PS I'll post pics in a bit. Internet is being extra slow this morning.

[Shane]

Bucket o' Clarias and the papyrus swamp where they were collected.
-Shane

[MatsP]

Great reading this...

--
Mats

[bronzefry]

I envy your friend and his first collecting trip. I bet his heart was racing with the bucket-o-Clarias and the killies!
Amanda

[Birger]

I am going to make a call(read guess) as

Clarias liocephalus

but you are not giving me much to go on with this picture be interesting to see what you come up with.