With upcoming projects that need the use of our electroshocking boat, I needed to take a few days to electroshock for Project Noble Beast. My hope is to obtain control physiological data from six muskies at temperatures above 20C (68F).
After hooking the boat up and driving down to the launch, I quickly realized that I had a case of the "Mondays"; I had forgotten multiple items. Fortunately, none were imperative to the success of the day, and in roughly 20 minutes we had things under control. When our tail-gate safety meeting was completed we zoomed off to begin probing the waters.
It was a slow start to our day, but after one muskie managed to evade the electric field another was stuck in the middle (with you?) and was immediately scooped by my expert netters, Keith Stamplecoskie (lab manager) and Sarah Larocque (fellow Masters student). The muskie measured 31.75" and had recently eaten a large meal as the outline of a fish could be seen protruding laterally from its stomach (looked like a sunfish). We released the fish in good health and kept on trucking until our generator ran out of gas.
A quick fill-up with our spare gas can and we were back at it. I decided to turn the boat around and head back toward the launch and down a particular weedline that would eventually put lead us to a popular muskie spot. We passed several boats, who all paused their fishing excursion to see what the heck we were up to. As we entered the aforementioned spot and began poking around with the electrodes, one of the nearby boats came closer to check things out. Not wanting to cause unnecessary harm to the other boat, we briefly cut the power to survey the situation. After I contemplated moving further downstream, I decided the other boat was sufficiently far away and motioned to Sarah to resume shocking.
As Sarah pressed her body weight against the power switch, the water immediately to her right suddenly illuminated the image of an extremely large muskie. The split second it took for everyone to react to what lay before us seemed like a millennium. When I snapped out of it, I took the boat and whipped it to the right, putting Sarah and Keith in perfect position to place a net at the head and tail of the beast. When it was secured I shut the power off and jumped to my feet, grabbing the net and hoisting the muskie on board. The nearby boat - dad (presumably) and four kids - eventually made their way over to us. Sarah fielded questions while I concentrated on extracting the blood. When I finally obtained the sample, made measurements and recorded other data, I asked the gentleman in the nearby boat to snap a quick picture for us. As I strained to lift the heavy fish up, the four kids quickly let out several OOOO's and AHHH'S. I laid the fish back into the water between our boats and let the kids touch the muskie before it paddled off out of sight. Needless to say, I believe I heard one of the kids say "I want to catch one of those!" and I smiled knowing that this group of kids will probably never forget the sight they just witnessed. In fact, tomorrow I need to retrieve the email address they provided us and send them pictures.
49 inches with a stout build. Go A-Team!
49 inches with a stout build. Go A-Team!
Released to hopefully be caught another day, and perhaps by the children that witnessed her capture today.It's been a while since I've handled a muskie for this project and it felt good to touch a few today. Hopefully tomorrow we can have similar results!
Yep, I see you too!
Great project! Thanks for keeping everyone up to date.
ReplyDeleteWow - nice fish - definitely a big one for the Rideau. So in spite of recent angling reports (or lack thereof!) perhaps it's true that muskies have not gone extinct in the National Capital Region ;-)
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