With snorkel and mask and net in hand, Tyler Goodale plies the Current River, The Jacks Fork and and other Missouri streams at night, looking for living treasure.

"Some of these small creeks around here are just chock full of amazing fish," Goodale said. "When people paddle canoes down a river, most have no idea what's right below them."

Goodale, a construction worker who lives in Wapapello, became fascinated with what lives in Missouri streams when he was a young boy.

"My dad got me into fishing, and we'd go catch bait and I'd see these different colorful fish that just blew me away by how neat they were. In the 1990s I saw my first 'Fishes of Missouri' book at a library. I had no idea we had these beautiful fish in my home state.  People might catch a dozen or so kinds of fish regularly, but there are 240 different species in the state of Missouri."

 

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