Now that we are back home safe and sound in Russian Mission, and the school year is under way, I am beginning to get around to processing all the movies and photos from this summer and getting some of them on here. It was an epic summer of fisheries work indeed, working for the Idaho fish and game. I figured it would be a lot of fun, but it turned out to be even more than I had suspected. Though the snorkeling/redd count position ended up not being compatible with my availability, we got a fair share of high mountain lakes stuff in anyway. And that wasn't all.....
The summer started off for me with some Pelican counts on local reservoirs. The aim of this is to assess where the problems might be, if any, regarding predation of game fish by the pelicans.
(still have to download and add pelican pics here)
Next up in my first week on the new summer gig was a string of catfish electroshocking trips in the Snake river. That is a whole new kind of rodeo, drifting down the Snake sideways, skimming gravel bars, jetting in under overhanging branches and just as quickly jetting back out, in order to avoid hitting sweepers, etc...all while trying to net the shocked fish, which are supposed to be immobilized, but are often jumping, drifting with the current, or otherwise very much in various states of motion. As, of course, are you and the boat... A mess of fun. These fish were captured to be transplanted in ponds around the Boise and Nampa area. Here is a shot of the truck, waiting on one of the ramps with some channel cats in the tank already.
Another recurring job was to tag rainbows at the Nampa hatchery and stock them in various locations. Need to upload more pics of this as well... but in the meantime, one such stocking location was the Boise river on the Boise State campus, just in front of the practice facility...
One of the tasks that was most regular was night-time larval tows in both Brownlee and CJ Strike reservoirs. This consisted of using a net with a rectangular frame at the opening that has a pyramid-shaped-bag that tapers back to a reservoir canister made of PVC. The canister has holes in it which are covered with a very fine mesh (measured in microns), and this mesh lets out water but traps plankton and larval gamefish. This net is towed behind the boat at certain spots in the reservoirs (places where historical tows have been taken - in the name of scientific consistency) for a set amount of time and is always at the same depth, towed at the same speed, etc. The primary goal is to monitor the curve of yearly larval production of crappie and identify the peak takes place. This allows (as just one example of data use) water use and control measures of the reservoir to be conducted in the best way possible to accommodate these fish, which are a major draw to those using the reservoirs. Carrying out one of these tow surveys means starting at dark (9:45 - 10:00 PM), and usually last until 2:30-3:30 AM, which usually meant getting back home around 5 or 6 AM. Both reservoirs are over an hour from the IDFG office, so usually we were in for long nights. Anyways...
This is a pic taken at around 2 AM, with my phone, so not the best, but...it shows the net leaning up against the side of the boat. The tail end is draped back over the top in this pic.
So, upon finishing one of the tows, we end up (usually) with a bunch of plankton and hopefully some larval crappie in the canister. Here I had dumped a bunch of plankton into the screen filter for a pic:
Here is a shot of some plankton mixed in with some larval crappie, perch, and smallmouth.
And here is a LOADED canister!!!!
We had the chance to be good samaritans on one of these trips, and pulled a stranded boat back to the dock....
Another thoroughly enjoyable task for our crew was to help out with sturgeon surveys on CJ Strike reservoir. To sample these fish, we used gill nets, targeting the smaller juvenile sturgeon in order to mark them so that when they are recaptured later things like growth rates, age, etc can be monitored. Here's a shot out the back as we cruised through the res on the way to our gill netting site.
A friend that landed on the boat and got a little waterlogged...
A yellow perch in the net...and an ancient dinosaur fish too!!...
A good one along side the boat.
The best way to get a big sturgeon in the boat (for us): Tie a rope on his tail and hope that you can get a bag of net under him to lift him up with - they don't make landing nets THIS big... Also, sturgeon have sharp, bony pointed scales (called 'scoots') along their back and sides which contain points that will easily tear skin, and these scales are ganoid, just like sharks' ganoid scales - if you rub across them against the grain, the surfaces will slice and dice. Just grabbing a little one with your hands is dicey, as one tail thrash = blood.
Rob and Weston trying to keep the net under one as he rolled...
A little one in the tub...
A better look at the scoots along the back and sides...
Here I am holding one of manageable size..yet still more than capable of creating need for a bandaid....as a side note...sturgeon are NOT to be lifted free of the water in Idaho, as it can damage internal organs. These fish are lifted out of the water by us and those we were working with ONLY in order to get them to the work-up boat where important data will be taken. Utmost care must be given to these ancient, awe-inspiring fish. Pictures had to be taken on the way from our tub to the other boats' measuring nets.
Rob getting one to smile for the camera...
Here a sturgeon is in the measuring net, which also works as a blinder to calm them, as well as keeps them under water the whole time to relieve stress. This fish is a recapture that was caught earlier in life, and is being scanned.
One of my favorite pics of the summer: A prehistoric-looking seven-footer:
The most exciting one-day trip of the summer also involved electroshocking, but no catfish. During the last week before having to leave, we rafted the South Fork Boise river canyon. The only catch was, we were shocking as we went. The 'shock raft' setup is pictured here:
The blue booms are the arms for the hanging probes you see dangling in front there (on left). Electric current is supplied by the generator in back, sent along those booms and out the 'tentacles', where it is conducted by the water and creates current between the probes and the hanging cables you see coming off the sides of the raft. The result is a field of electricity around and below the raft. Fish caught in this field are shocked and stunned, and they (usually) float to the surface, where they are netted. Sometimes they are much more lively when hit with the current than they are supposed to be...and not so easy to net. This is amplified when you are rolling down a river that moves this much water, dodging rocks and class 3 rapids as you go. It can get exciting...
Here is the shock raft, with Joe rowing and Luke netting. This is a nice, mild stretch of river, but these pics do a fair job of showing what is supposed to be going on.
So as you can see, after the netter scoops up some incapacitated, but perfectly alright fish, he swings them around and drops them into the 'livewell' holding tank. This consists of an aerated metal tank placed in the center of the raft. The fish will be held in here until the given section of river transect is done, at which time shocking ceases and the 'chase raft' comes up from behind. The fish are then transferred to the chase boat for workup and data collection, and then released unharmed.
A shot looking forward from the chase raft. Quite a bit of burn area through the canyon.
Once a transect was done, the fish are moved, as I was saying, to this tub which is in the chase boat. From there, they are processed.
So here is the chase boat in action....I pull a fish out of the tub and place them into a cooler which has peppermint oil inside to anesthetize the fish. Once they relax, we measure length, weigh each one, and a third person records the data, all while noting species.
A nice healthy rainbow, feeling sleepy.....
Pete weighs a rainbow while Weston records...
An intermittent scenery shot... :)
Always scientific...but rarely serious.....
This was a fun little chute....
How about having this for your office, hmm?
Another 'office' shot, taken from the shock raft as we waited for the chase boat to catch up.
The highlight of the summer, for me, was getting the chance to hike up into the Baron Lakes region of the Sawtooth National Forest to conduct amphibian and lake surveys. I have posted this on the species list pages in much more detail, and so will just provide captions here for the most part. Basically, we were there to check for presence and success level of amphibians, primarily Long-toed salamanders among others, and also monitor lake water quality parmeters and presence of trout; i.e. success of stocking programs and potential for resuming/terminating a given lake from the stocking lists. Of course, if these protected salamanders are present, we do not want to introduce trout to compete with and EAT the salamanders. Also, if fish are not surviving in a given lake very well, we do not want to keep dumping resources (fish) into it - and inversely, if a lake is so healthy that natural reproduction is taking place, we can then stop stocking that lake and turn resources elsewhere...etc. Here are a smattering of the pics from the trip, in no particular order. For better explanations of what you are seeing, check out the species list post about the "Sawtooth Grand Slam".
A high-mountain Brookie from Baron lake.
A view of Baron lake from our camp.
An evening lake shot.
A sweeping view of several lakes from 10000 feet.
And the view a little further to the right...
Weston and Joe by our favorite lake of the trip.
And a solo of me, at same lake:
Looking down on Upper Bead lake. - sorry, this pic is a little washed out...
Upper Bead up close.
A nice Westslope Cutthroat (17") from Upper Bead.
A view of the descent down to Upper Bead from the bottom.
A sample of the terrain.
One of at least 6 doubles from Lower Bead lake.
A Westslope in spawning colors from Lower Bead.
Another Lower Bead Cutt.
A close up of a brightly colored Westslope Cutthroat male.
Sure is hard work...
There's a goat on the snow down there...
And here's two more shots as we crept up behind him on our way out of the basin:
A Golden trout on the way in.
Spectacular fish, these Goldens are, and by far my favorite trout.
A Grayling, caught from the same lake as the Goldens. That combination in the same lake at 9000 feet - it doesn't get any better in my book.
Yet another of the basins we ogled over on the trip. Ugly hiking, but worth every step.
Lower Baron lake.
Wildflowers in an old burn area.
A fat alpine Brookie.
Fish on!
A Columbia Spotted Frog....waving...
Proof of natural reproduction - a Brookie fry lurking in the shallows.
Lower Baron from a different angle.
A high mountain meadow, complete with a stream. And, there's trout in it......
I'd bet there's trout under those logs, too......AND that rock....
Luke, Weston, and Me at the boundary sign.
A close up of another Westslope, this one closer to a 'normal' color.
A pic from the moment of the strike...
An INSANELY colored Golden trout!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Beautiful fish in a beautiful place.
Life on the trail...
That blob in the vertical trail at lower right is a string of four pack horses hauling much of our gear.
Yet another Grayling.
Paul and the horses up close.
A nice Golden.
The basin we came in through. All the way out and around that corner to the left a ways is the trailhead, about 8.5 miles from where this pic was taken. And this was still 2.5 miles from basecamp.
Mountain Goat checking us out....still losing his winter coat, looks like.
A sunset shot.
an abstract shot of the Golden/Grayling lake. Fishing among icebergs, we were.....
A view of another of the Baron lakes. That's Weston down there, arms raised...
All in all, it was a blast of a summer, and it was refreshing to work in a regional office that has their hands in so many different things.
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