Post-conference muskies

Last week I attended the annual American Fisheries Society conference in Pittsburgh to give a presentation on part of my thesis (the catch-and-release work). I was quite pleased with my presentation and received good feedback for future consideration when I begin writing my thesis. It was very cool listening to the wide array of presentations highlighting the variety of research being conducted globally. Two of my favorite presentations focused on alligator gar in the Fourche LaFave River, Arkansas (though I may be partial to anything with lots of teeth).

But all good things must come to an end, and after our return Friday evening Jonathan Jordan (Upper Ottawa chapter of MCI) coordinated an outing today with Hedrik Wachelka and me. The morning greeted us with a shroud of fog. Though we diligently worked our spots under our cloud cover, we failed to move anything. After the fog burned off, we headed upstream to a new area. Hedrik explained how the spot was laid out and we began flogging the area. Shortly after firing our first few casts, Jonathan calmly said "I got one!" Fifty-four seconds later I slid the net under a 43"er, from which we took blood and a scale sample (the latter for an unrelated project being conducted by Dr. Chris Wilson with Trent University and the Ministry of Natural Resources). The fish was slow to take off, but eventually it kicked away, dropped its head, and disappeared into the abyss.

The remainder of the day was fairly slow, though Jonathan was successful in capturing a second fish just before calling it a day. I was happy to be out and fishing new(ish) water with yet another volunteer. Thanks, Jonathan!