It's been so cold and snowy lately that it's hard to believe that just about two weeks ago (Jan 28) us local-freshwater folk were experiencing perfect fish-catching weather. Dr. Haines, Matt, Stephen, Audry, and I (Courtney) went down the the Matoka Spillway mid-afternoon and managed to catch a total of 4 fish (including 3 different species - we think - bluegill, darter, and white crappie!).
Actually catching the fish was surprisingly not that difficult. Matt and Audry pulled on those always trendy waders and splashed around in the stream while Stephen and I set the seine net across the width of the stream, trying to have the weights alonf the base of the net rest along the bottom of the stream. Then Matt and Audry would stomp and poke their nets around while they walked towards the net - the idea being that they might scare the fish downstream into the seine. we repeated this procedure about 5 times, each repetition a little further downstream than the last, until we had captured 4 fish! After returning borrowed equipment (waders, pole-nets and seine net) to the Keck lab we went back to Millington 13. There we had to acclimate the fish to the new tank temperature before adding them to the tank and trying to key them.
We have yet to name our new fish, and we haven't had them for very long - so, I'm not going to talk about them too much, but I want to say that the darter is especially cool looking because it has a double dorsal fin. Anyway, fishing was fun and I'm looking forward to adding more fish to the aquarium. I don't know about the rest of the local freshwater group, but I'd really like to get a catfish in before the end of the semester. Anyway, good-job team! Have a good Sunday and see y'all on Tuesday.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment