Project Noble Beast... Part Deux

So as to not allow this Blog to go static, I will continue to update it with more advancements in my studies. This Blog is meant to showcase the research, but is also a snapshot into my trials and tribulations as a candidate for a Masters in Biology.

We will soon be transitioning into the second chapter of my thesis which will be looking at the viability of alternatives to J-hook live-bait swallow rigs. The study will be conducted with help from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. It will likely include four different treatments/rigs examined: quick-strike, circle hook, J-hook with 1-minute time-to-hookset, and J-hook with 5-minute time-to-hookset. [Note: All this is subject to change and may be ever-evolving if we are finding disproportionate mortality with one treatment. Remember, our goal is NOT to kill muskies, but to find ways to fish for them WITHOUT killing them.]

Many of you will recall the study conducted by Terry Margenau of the Wisconsin DNR (published in 2007) that showed single-hook rigs kill muskies, often rather brutally. So some of you may be wondering why we are even using J-hooks? First, Margenau and colleagues allowed the muskies to swallow the bait for sometimes upwards of 30+ minutes, so our use of them with shortened times-to-hookset will be an interesting comparison . Second, J-hook rigs are simply too common to not test. Lastly, the goal of the study is not necessarily to ban J-hooks (this will be very tough to accomplish), but to begin a massive education program (if the results indicate such is necessary) on alternatives to J-hooking or at least how to use a J-hook and cause little injury and mortality.

We will continue to work on the C&R project while we do the live-bait study, but soon we will be concentrating on "soaking suckers"! Tight lines, folks.

"If you think you can win, you can. Faith is necessary for victory."

On June 22nd of 2009, Project Noble Beast's commencement came with the capture of the study's first muskie from the Rideau River. Over 550 angler hours, 60 outings, $2,000+ in fuel, $2,000 lower-unit rebuild, two emergency room visits for volunteers, and a total of 95 days later, Project Noble Beast reached its goal of 30 muskies for Season 1 of the study.

The finish was textbook. Our last 11 fish came before noon - with seven of them before 10AM - which told us there was a sure-fire morning bite. Yesterday, we captured, tagged, and released three muskies in a two hour span between 8:45 and 10:45AM. Our last five fish came from one spot. Thus, the decision and resulting game-plan was easy: get up EARLY to maximize time during the morning bite and fish our go-to spot.

Our first run-through produced one boil from an unknown species. I was throwing topwater while Hedrik threw a bucktail. When we reached the top of the weedbed, Hedrik continued using the bucktail and I clipped on a big plastic Curly Sue (per Hedrik's suggestion). We drifted back down and toward the sweetspot of the weedbed, and as I entered the L-turn at the end of one of my casts a muskie rolled up and CRUSHED the lure at the boat. All morning I was on edge knowing we needed just one more fish to reach our goal, so the hit sent my heart rate SKY ROCKETING. In 32 seconds, the 41 inch female was secured in the net, and we became the victors!

Though we have reached our goal of 30 for the season, this benchmark was merely a goal and not the end-point. We will continue to opportunistically catch additional muskies as the water temperatures drop to gain data across a gradient of water temperatures. Currently, we've captured muskies from water just over 81 down to around 63 degrees Fahrenheit, but would like catch fish in water around 50 degrees or even lower. We also need additional fish to boost sample sizes for the blood physiology.

It's been a blast, and most definitely the best summer job ever! I'd like to thank all those that volunteered their time to help with the project. Regardless of whether we caught fish or not, you folks provided me with motivation to continue flogging the water in an effort to enhance muskie fishing for generations to come. Without angler support, we wouldn't be where we are today. Period.

So, I will tip a cold one back tonight for all those that have provided support either in the form of man-power, money, and/or lure and equipment donations. Thanks folks! Looking forward to continued support, and success!

T Minus... 1

That's right! Hat-trick! One more fish to go! Yahooooo!

Today, Hedrik and I were joined by Ed Sanford of the Ottawa club. Ed has been adamant about getting out and we've been tag-teaming the river recently, but actually getting to fish together has not occurred. Until today! We three muskie-teers hit the Ottawa this morning in good spirits.

Our first task was picking which spot to fish. This is always the most important decision to make during the day as the feeding windows have been typically occuring in the morning. Our best spot produced no action for us - either from muskies or any other fish species - the last time we fished it, but after letting it rest for a day or two we chose to try it again today.

We made one pass over our little weedbed and about half-way up our second pass... WHAMO! My topwater is OBLITERATED by a big fish. It actually harpooned the bait and was subsequently hooked beneath the jaw. I wasn't sure how well she was hooked, but after a short tustle we had fish #27 in the boat! She taped out at 48 inches, and beautifully marked to boot!

After tracking her for 10 minutes, we resume fishing for a bit until our next tracking session. No sooner do we begin fishing when I hear the spine-tingling, adrenaline pumping, "I got one!" Hedrik was tied into a scrappy little 36 inch male, making this our 28th fish of the study.

Now we had our hands full juggling the tracking of two fish. We finally found time to make a few more casts, but soon it was time to track again. As I said to Hedrik and Ed, "OK, time to track." Hedrik belts out another "I GOT ONE!" I scramble for the net and swiftly scoop up our 29th fish!

After that, the wind picked up and our two hour feeding window closed. We are hoping to catch our 30th fish tomorrow morning or possibly Saturday morning and reach our goal of 30 fish for the season. We are already planning on celebrating the "milestone"! Hope doing so doesn't jinx us!

Stay tuned... :)

Must Be Something In The Air

Grab your favorite tasty beverage and tip one back for Russell Spanton. Russell - who hooked a muskie on his first cast on Monday - hooked himself today. The hook slid in past the barb and it was a trip to the ER for Mr. Spanton!

That makes TWO volunteers to hook themselves and have to take a trip to the ER (three if you count Hedrik who pulled the hook out of his arm...).

There should be a warning for every volunteer to help with the project: ASSIST AT YOUR OWN RISK. :)

51.5 Inch Recapture

With time winding down in September and only four more fish to reach our goal of 30, I am chomping at the bit. For the past several days we've had fog in the mornings with clear skies by 10AM. It has also been fairly hot with little wind. Today's forecast was high of 22C, cloudy, and a 10kmh SW wind. I got a good night's sleep to be well rested for what surely would bring fish number's 27, 28, 29, and 30 to the boat!

Boy was I wrong.

Most of our action has been coming early in the day. By mid-morning we did not see a single fish. It was proving to be a tough day, and we knew whatever action we would have would require a fair bit of work.

After a short trolling run early afternoon, Hedrik and I decided to fish a spot that recently produced a 45" for us and another for myself (fishing for fun) in late August. Hedrik and I were just discussing which side of this particular spot was more productive when the water erupted behind me. Hedrik's rod was doubled over and I knew this was no pike...

I didn't get a good look at the fish until it was headed into the net, but when I did I was... surprised. As the fish slid into the net I noticed it had a transmitter on it. Great! We recapped a previous fish. Bummer that it wasn't a new fish, but oh well. I immediately assumed it was the same 45" as we caught a little over a week ago. When Hedrik grabbed the gill flap to unhook the fish, I noticed there was no hole in the flap which had been present on the 45". I jumped to the back of the boat and picked up my Bible [data book]. I asked Hedrik if he could read the transmitter frequency. I have a sheet in the back of my Bible that has all the transmitter frequencies of fish we've tagged and their corresponding numbers in the study (e.g., Fish #1, Fish #23, etc.). Hedrik replied to my query with "150-dot-460"...

Hmmm. Looks like fish number... 27? What? That's not the 45 incher! So I flip to Fish #27 and look at its length. "Hedrik?" I ask. "Guess how big this fish is?" Hedrik caught the 51.5 incher we tagged on August 14th. The fish was originally captured on a bucktail in the figure-8. Today, it was captured on a large plastic bait (Bulldawg) also at the boat (not quite in the figure-8, but close). The fish was caught at the opposite end of the island and probably moved an estimated 1-1.5km (0.5-0.75 miles) to where it was caught today.

We removed the transmitter as its recapture answers the study's main question: Do fish survive the catch-and-release process? According to this fish, they most certainly DO.

One photo shows the fish when I caught it and the others of Hedrik taken today. Enjoy!

T Minus... Just Kidding

Russell Spanton of the MCI Ottawa chapter almost got us a step closer to our goal today, and on the first cast! One cast with his brand new topwater and Russell was battling a nice low-40 inch muskie. He got it close to the boat where it turned and made a run away from us, and promptly threw the hook. Russell was the "hot stick" today as he had action from two others, boating one JUST under 30 inches. I will be fishing with Russell again on Wednesday and expect BETTER results!

T Minus... 4

After a one day hiatus from fishing to track, Hedrik and I were back at things today. We hit the road shortly after 7AM and ran into VERY heavy fog. In fact, this was possibly the heaviest I've ever driven in, much less fished in. I figured navigating through the fog couldn't be THAT difficult... Boy was I wrong. A short drive to our first spot that should have taken us five minutes under normal conditions now took us almost 30. I finally had to use the hand-held GPS to fix our last waypoint and navigate us to that location. Even then, the shoreline was barely visible and maintaining the proper heading was a task to say the least. It was very creepy as the fog began to lift and boats began to appear seemingly out of nowhere.

We knew our window of opportunity was small as the fog gave us "artificial" cloud-cover despite being bright and sunny beyond the fog. We made a couple passes through the spot and turned around again to work it a bit more slowly. I chose a zig-zag glide bait and popped it over submergent weeds. Sure enough, right in front of a guy bass fishing a nice 41 inch muskie hammered the glider and made SEVERAL powerful runs. These powerful runs were evidenced in this fish's lactate values which were higher than normal.

As a side note, this particular fish had a previous Floy tag in it from an unknown source, though the area code is from my home state of Illinois (Naperville/Wheaton area). This is unfortunate as unless this individual (and another whose tags I've pulled from other fish) is working with the Canadian government (OMNR) or another research institution, they are not allowed to Floy tag muskies without permission. It is my knowledge that the OMNR does not issue permits to individuals. Very disappointning to see such behavior. Laws are put into the books for a reason, and for a handful of people to operate as if the law does not pertain to them is deplorable. If whoever is doing this tagging is reading this, please email me a copy of your permit so I can put this issue to rest and squelch anger amongst the local fishermen. Thanks, gentlemen...

The picture at the top of this post is intended to illustrate how little most of our fish have been moving immediately post-release. From the far left orange buoy to the far right yellow buoy is less than 50 feet. The middle yellow buoy is where the fish was tracked 10 mins post-release, the far right was at 30 mins, and the far left at one hour.

T Minus... 5

Last night before going to bed I checked the weather and a big cold front was forecasted to blow through in the morning. Rain, wind, cold temps giving way to sun, wind, and cold temps late morning...

Hedrik and I planned accordingly by getting up very early and making sure to get on the water shortly after sun-up. We were both on the same page as we agreed hitting one spot in particular would give us our best chance at a fish. The trick, however, would be finding the vegetation. As soon as we did that, it was off to the races!

Maybe 10 minutes after finding the vegetation and beginning our drift, I feel slack on my line even though the lure was coming back to the boat under constant tension. I didn't think anything of it at the time and just continued reeling figuring my lure was fouled in weeds. Then, I felt weight, but just a little. Then, more! So I reefed back on the rod and set the hook. The fish came to the surface head-shaking at Mach 3. In 35 seconds the fight was over and I was staring at our 25th fish to be affixed with a transmitter. After some minor struggling to get blood and push the "backpacker" through to affix the transmitter, the big male was returned to the water.

Shortly thereafter, the sun broke through and we called it quits! White caps everywhere!

[Note extremely fresh lamprey wounds on upper jaw.]

T Minus... 6

I had the extreme pleasure of fishing with Dale MacNair from the Ottawa chapter of MCI. Dale's been extremely kind to me as I've made my transition to Ottawa. He's offered to take me "fun fishing" on multiple occasions and even offered to help me find a place to live. Aside from being a good guy, he's also quite the fisherman. Last November (2008), Dale caught one of the (if not THE) largest muskies ever caught and released. The behemoth measured 57 inches in length with a mind-boggling 33 inch girth (the latter measurement was what made the catch "of world record proportions"). Heck, I don't even have a 33 inch waist! As a field editor and contributing writer for Muskies Inc.'s (stateside organization) magazine, I jumped at the opportunity to interview Dale. The tele-interview lasted over an hour, for which most of it I forgot to take notes since I was so enthralled in the story! After the interview, I told Dale I would look forward to fishing with him when I arrived in Ottawa this summer.

Today was the day I had been looking forward to for a long time. Eager with anticipation to hit the prime bite between 0700-0900, Dale and I ventured out to the mighty Ottawa River. Our plan was simple: fish good locations both casting and trolling. We began trolling a large piece of structure that has, historically, been good for Dale and his partners (and us, too, as we have four fish with transmitters on it). Trolling produced nothing, as did casting, so we moved on to another spot. Maybe less than 10 casts at this new location, a nice mid-40 inch muskie follows Dale's lure to the boat and veers away before Dale could go into a figure-8. We made a mental note and moved on.

On the other side of the structure was another buddy of ours: Keean Robertson also of the Ottawa chapter. Keean actually called me last night to see if I had a partner for today. I neglected to mention that though I was fishing with Dale in Dale's boat, I would be bringing all my sampling gear along. After we spoke with Keean on the water, he moved across the river and within minutes was releasing a fish. Dale and I jetted over a minute late as Keean was putting the net away. If I'd been on the ball the night before or that morning and told Keean we had all our sampling gear, the title of this post would be "T Minus... 5". Alas, I dropped the ball. Life goes on.

So Dale and I perservered, with nothing to show for our efforts. We decided casting wasn't going to cut it (bluebird skies + no wind + HOT = not great for casting), but trolling just might! So we proceeded to troll and worked our way toward the area that Dale raised his fish earlier that morning. As we passed over the spot the fish was seen at earlier, my reel's clicker sprang to life ZZZZ...ZZZZZ....ZZZZZ! Fifty-four seconds later and we were staring at a nice 45 inch muskie that we think was the same fish from earlier that morning.

The fish was given the gentle treatment, and no one was around to take pictures of the release, so no photographic evidence exists that we caught the fish (you'll have to take my word for it). The big male powered away and, as most of our other fish have done, went straight to the bottom and remained there for the next two hours.

Hopefully our good luck continues!

T Minus... 7

Though we worked on Labor Day... we were well rewarded! Three boats hit the river on the7th to help PNB in its home stretch of less than 10 fish needed to complete its goal of 30. Ed Lalonde and Chris "Pepe" Purdy (both of the Ottawa MCI chapter) piloted one boat; Kert Lavigne (Upper Valleye MCI) and Matt Clay (Ottawa MCI) another; and myself, Brian Peach and Hedrik Wachelka (both Ottawa MCI) captained the final boat. It was a day of tag-teaming in hopes of getting at least one fish...

Our boat began the morning with hardly any action, as was true for the other two boats. Later in the morning Hedrik had a nice low-40 inch class fish hammer his Bulldawg at the boat, clear the water with a nice jump, give Brian his daily shower, and finish with a wave of its fin [it got off]...

As noon approached, Kert connected with a nice, chunky 43" that was caught within eyesight of our boat. We blasted over, processed the fish, and commenced tracking. No sooner did we start when I look over and now Matt is battling a fish. We again come screaming in to find a mini-muskie sitting in the net. At just under 32" it is the smallest fish so far, but over 30" and thus OK to be sampled!

Apparently the lucky horseshoe was with Matt and Kert because neither our boat nor Chris and Ed could shake anything loose. Nevertheless, it was one of the best days on the water I've had in a while and a reminder that simply fishing with friends is just as much fun as catching the fish we pursue!

EXCELLENT Catch-and-Release Video

Will Schultz's Release Video (<--- click)

This is a truly excellent example of how to greatly reduce the handling time of your catch, while still preserving the memory through pictures. In fact, I haven't seen a better one out there. EVERYONE should watch this at least once. I've never met Will, but his reputation precedes him as a true ambassador of the sport. Thank you, Will, for taking the time to produce such a high quality, educational video.

In fact, since this blog is intended to be both fun AND educational I have made a permanent link to the video on the right margin under LINKS.

Waiting Game

As of September 1st the motor is still not fixed. I was hoping to return to Ottawa with a fully-functional motor, but I guess not!