Deuce

Inserting accelerometer.

With accelerometer in place, time to sew him (yes, it was a male) up.

Keith Stamplecoskie releasing our buddy.

Back to prowl the depths...

We scored two more muskies today, both just shy of 40 inches. The pictures above were from the larger of the two (one male [pictured above] and one female).

Shocking!

Today marked the beginning of the final chapter for my thesis... Well, it began after a $200 trip to the marine dealer (apparently you can overfill oil tanks on 4-stroke engines... Ooops!).

When we finally got to the ramp we found the river was much lower than when we last visited (a good thing as it concentrates the fish more). We fired up the generator, donned our stylish rubber gloves and rubber boots, and off we went! Within a few minutes the electricity pulsing through the water spooked a small muskie that leapt out of the way. It was a good sign as a short while later at a popular casting spot we electofished a small male, inserted a transmitter, sewed him up, and let him go in less than 8 minutes! THAT officially marked the beginning of this phase of Project Noble Beast.

Shortly thereafter we shocked up two muskies within close proximity to each other, one likely a female and the other a male. This indicated to use that perhaps some of the muskies are preparing to spawn and are staging at or just outside preferred spawning areas. Again, both muskies had accelerometers inserted inside their bodies, given two small stitches, and released. We capped the day off with one more male.

Accelerometer transmitters with a quarter to show their relative size.

Preparing the first stitch and using a pair of forceps to block the suture needle from piercing any internal organs.

Close-up of the incision and the beginning of the first stitch.

Our intention is to capture eight muskies via electrofishing and another eight via angling later on. We will continue to electrofish tomorrow and into next week, before I head back to British Columbia.

Gotta say, playing Doctor with muskies is pretty fun! (Good thing they don't know I stunk at the game "Operation" when I was a kid... I can still hear that buzzer blaring at me everytime I tried to remove the wish bone.)

Finishing the last few wraps of a stitch. Dr. Steven Cooke looks on.

Bull Trout in British Columbia

For the past week I have been surrounded by the beautiful British Columbia interior. I was on a mission to help a PhD student begin his 3-4 year study on the spatial ecology of bull trout (member of the char family, similar to a lake trout). I may have caught a half dozen rainbow trout and one cutthroat in my entire life, so getting a chance to work with a very cool Salmonid (salmon/trout/char family), and something so different than what I am accustomed to (warm-water species) was a real treat. To read a little more about bull trout, see the following Wikipedia link (perhaps not the most credible source, but you get the idea): Bull Trout

Our objective was to capture as many bull trout as possible (actually, 200 was the goal) and surgically implant them with acoustic transmitters that will last about three years. We hooked up with guide Jamie Tippe of Revelstoke, BC. Not only did Jamie put us on fish under less than ideal conditions, he was a constant source of laughter and awesome stories of the British Columbian wilderness. Jamie was, for all intents and purposes, a class act all around. I have met lots of anglers in my life, but Jamie ranks amongst my top three (a ranking that goes beyond just being able to catch fish).

The most interesting part of the trip, for me, was seeing (and doing a few) surgeries. Lee Gutowsky, the PhD student in charge, became a master fish surgeon in a few short days. First using an appropriate amount of clove oil as anesthetic, then a feather scalpel and absorbable monofilament sutures (the same tools used in human surgeries), Lee tagged almost 100 fish during our stay. To provide the fish with oxygen, flow-through running water was provided via a tube that ran water over the gills. The setup was very cool to see in the field, and something many researchers would not have deemed possible in the field once upon a time!

The experience has proved valuable as I am now confident I have the know-how and capabilities for doing surgeries on muskies this coming week and the following. Beginning Thursday, Project Noble Beast will resume. We will be electrofishing muskies and surgically implanting tiny acoustic transmitters that will give us depth and acceleration (i.e., activity) data. Eight listening stations will be deployed throughout the stretch of river we plan to use. The stations will "listen" for each fish (eight for now) and record data every 60-90 seconds throughout the day. Never before has anyone attempted to obtain such fine-scale daily behavioral data for muskies. Hopefully the fruits of our labor will provide interesting insight into the behavioral ecology of muskies!

R&R

I headed back to Illinois for the Easter weekend and the following week. Soon my life will be consumed by field work and it was time for a break!

One of the things I wanted to do while I was home was take the boat out for a spin somewhere. My Dad and I chose Lake Shelbyville which is a lake we're fairly familiar with. Storms were in the forecast so we hoped to get some fishing in before the bad weather hit.

We launched the boat and noted the water temperature was in the upper 50s and probably beyond what muskies spawn at and not quite where bass spawn at. Not expecting much since this particular lake can be a doozy to figure out in the spring we headed to our favorite spot (for those familiar with the lake, Buoy Cove).

Armed with mostly bass gear we flogged the shoreline with casts using rattle traps and Rapala X-Raps. Soon after deploying the trolling motor and cruising down the shoreline, Dad hooks up with a big pre-spawn female largemouth (18"). I speculate that she was likely staging in areas that males will soon move into and create nests.



With high-fives all around we continued down the shoreline. Maybe 50 yards down I cast my X-Rap beyond and left of a cluster of three stumps. As I twitch the bait back to the boat by lure gets hammered. The fish peeled off to the right, wrapping my line in the stumps. Fortunately I was able to get the fish unwrapped and I hoisted a beauty 19" pre-spawn female largemouth into the boat. Gotta love big bucketmouths!



Not to be outdone, Dad starts fan-casting the shoreline with a 3-bladed spinnerbait and puts the laces to a nice fish, which surfaces and shows itself to be a muskie! Not a giant, probably under 30 inches, but nice to see... and legal to catch in Illinois with no closed season! Slime time baby!



Headed to British Columbia momentarily so it's time to sign off. I'll be working with what some might consider "baitfish"/trout (bull trout to be exact; EDIT - bull trout are a member of the char family, more like a lake trout than, say, a rainbow). I'm hoping to take a few pictures so if anything exciting happens I'll post it here for you
folks to see!