Common "Mummichogs" (Fundulus heteroclitus)
The best known and most numerous of all the members of the Cyprinodontidae Family
1. Live about 4 yrs -- Grow to 5"
2. Found from the high salinity of the Bay to the lower salinity of the tributaries.
3. Thrives on muddy shoreline bottoms, slow moving creeks, and mosquitoe ditches. Water so low in oxygen that nothing else can spend much time there.
4. Diet: A predator of small shrimp , amphipods, isopods, copepods it also feeds on plant matter, and detritus. That being said I've found they'll eat anything they can get in they're mouth.
5. Never leave the estuary, and can be caught right through the winter by scooping as much as a foot into the muddy sediments of mosquitoe ditches where they winter.
Observation: In late Fall I've found that young individuals up to 2" make massive migrations into tidal creeks where they become prime forage for returning Striped Bass. I've never found them in stomach contents in any other season., though theres no doubt they are a "Bait of Opportunity" throughout the year