Yesterday (6/22) marked the start of Project Noble Beast. I was joined by two German fisheries biologists (specializing in pike). We had a good day...
Dr. Arlinghaus worked his German magic on the Canadian muskies by snap jigging a Jig-A-Beast at the base of a deep weedline. We soon had our first data point of the study... a fatty 47" (which I am holding)! We strapped it with a transmitter and tracked her for the next two hours (Floy tag and transmitter can be seen in the bottom photo). It proceeded, upon release, to immediately head into shallow DENSE (100% coverage) weeds where it stayed for the remainder of the tracking period. We went back today to track it at the 24 hour mark and it had moved from the shallow weed cover out to the base of a nearby weedline.
Not to be outdone by our friends over-seas, we continued to fish the evening bite. In 45 minutes we had action from 4 fish (2 follows and 2 strikes), with 3 of the 4 fish coming after a Weagle. Toward the end of the evening I caught a 46.5" on a Weagle roughly 25' from the boat. Due to there being a difference in fish diurnal and nocturnal movements, this fish did not get strapped with a transmitter, but we did do some reflex impairment tests so all was not wasted.
Hopefully the strong evening bite continues and we are able to get more data (I mean fish)!
EDIT: I checked the lunar phase on Monday after noticing the sliver-of- a-moon tonight and found that it was indeed a new moon on Monday. Not surprising then that the action was good!
Sean...that fish is a frickin fatty! Nice work for the first day. Let's not forget I'm only about 4 hours away! Anyway, glad to hear things are finally starting to happen with the whole project and hope to hear more monster muskie updates in the ensuing weeks.
ReplyDeleteMay your muskies be husky,
Zach Quinn
Nice dude. That's a good way to start off the project. How are you doing the reflex impairment tests? I've read a few papers on that with marine fish and thought it could be used on FW fish.
ReplyDeleteSean,awesome start. What did the Germans think of the muskies?
ReplyDeleteTroy
Hey Sean, Congrats on kicking off your project. You are now officially my hero...fishing and calling it work. Who are you kidding? JK Hey, quick question. Why didn't you track the fish you caught close to dark? I've always wondered how far fish travel from their day spots to feed at night. Good luck on the rest of your 'work'!
ReplyDeleteVandy,
ReplyDeleteWe are looking at a suite of reflexes from mouth closure to equilibrium. Some of the tests are done in the holding trough (e.g., vestibular-ocular rotation and body flex) while others are upon release (e.g., burst away, equilibrium). Davis, MW is probably the guy you're thinking of.
Troy,
The Germans loved the muskies! They ESPECIALLY loved when I was able to show them muskies on topwater! Fortunately the muskies boiled or followed just before they struck so I was able to get their attentions so they could see the strikes. Pretty cool indeed.
J,
We are just focusing on diurnal movements. Nocturnal movements would be a paper in and of itself (and a pretty cool one at that). Perhaps if we decide to do more fine-scale tracking we would look at nocturnal movements, but for now just diurnal.