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Yellow Catfish, a fish of the Ocklawaha Traditional Cache

Hidden : 6/1/2013
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
4.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:


Fish of the Ocklawaha Series - Yellow Catfish


The yellow bullhead, (Ameiurus natalis) is a species of bullhead catfish that is a ray-finned fish that lacks scales. This particular species is a medium sized member of the catfish family. It is typically yellow-olive to slatey-black on the back and sometimes mottled depending on habitat. The sides are lighter and more yellowish, while the underside of the head and body are bright yellow, yellow white, or bright white. The rear edge of its caudal fin is rounded. The anal fin is much larger than many fish having anywhere between 23 and 27 rays. The yellow bullhead though less common, can be easily distinguished from the brown bullhead and black bullhead by its white barbels or "whiskers". Yellow bullheads are medium-sized bullheads rarely getting larger than 2 lb (0.91 kg) but can reach up to 3.5 pounds. Yellow bullheads range in size from 6-15 inches but can reach up to 18 inches and live up to 7 years. There have been studies that have found yellow bullheads ranging from 1 to 12 years of age, the study used over 200 fish from different habitats in the southern Florida everglades to conduct this experiment.1 In the study they used the total length of a bullhead as a function of absolute age allowing them to compare the pectoral spine length and weight.1 Catfish and bullheads have sub-terminal mouths in which the end of the snout only projects slightly beyond the mouth of the fish.

 

 

 

 

This series of caches is meant to be easy to find but hard to get to. They are mostly small to medium sized Lock and Lock type containers, tethered between waist and head height. There are a variety of dangers present including but not limited to snakes, hogs, monkeys, bears, poisonous plants, stinging insects, gators and quicksand. If you plan to do this series of caches, please be very careful.

You should always wear long pants and boots. Bring a sturdy stick. You'll need it for balance, testing the ground to make sure it's solid and poking it in front of you to make sure there is nothing living in the place where you are about to step. Also, please bring a traditional compass. GPSers loose satellites out here often and you may need a compass to keep your heading. If you have never gone after caches that were 4+ terrain, just because of bushwhacking, please don't do this series. I cannot overstate how challenging some of these are to get to.

The caches that are not 5T, you can access via on foot, from the steel bridge cache. The ones that are 5T, you will need a boat and the closes ramp is Gore's Landing.



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