Are there fish in this super polluted creek?

According to local anglers, the creeks in Longview have zero fish in them. Well, they're wrong because I have caught a LOT of fish in these creeks! I haven't found any of the large game fish like largemouth bass, just little ones. In one of the creeks today, I saw six species of fish:

Bluegill (caught)
Longear Sunfish (caught)
Blackstripe Topminnow (caught)
Channel Catfish (caught, all small specimens under legal limit)
Spotted Gar (caught by accident, escaped)
Unknown micro species, possibly Blacktail Shiner (seen, not caught)

When I was trying to catch the sunfish, a spotted gar suddenly attacked my bobber and tried to eat it. It then attacked my worm, but since I was using thin microfish line, it bit off the hook & swam off. Tomorrow I am going to back to that spot with my heavy pole and line to catch the gar for an observation photo.

I've had to obscure the location of these catches because according to TCEQ, Longview's creeks are so heavily contaminated with raw sewage that you shouldn't enter the water, and I don't want to accidentally encourage unknowing people to wade in those creeks and get sick.

Posted on Μάιος 18, 2018 0240 ΠΜ by cosmiccat