The Turtle Slinger !

Our day off was Wednesday, but we put in 8 hours of volunteer work ! From 7:30-11:30am staff went back out to pull the hoop nets, check fish variety, weight and length. BV helped pull in the nets, sort the fish and.... when we got turtles... "sling em out" ! Several large snapping turtles were caught and thus the new nickname! For those tracking his fishing progess... see the big fish he has >>>

History Lesson #3: The hoop nets are huge, smaller nets underwater lead fish into the square end, they swim to the smaller hooped ends and cannot get out. No harm is done to them. When pulled, the fish are dumped into a tank of water, BV pulled them out one by one, the biologists took the measurements and the fish were released. I'm excited - I've taken on a photographer role & will work with them to update their interpretive boards & put together a portfolio of pictures showing the different hatchery activities that go on during the year.

That night from 8pm-12midnight we met with staff from here & the NB state fish & game to conduct a joint agency night bass data count. History Lesson #4: one boat has front electric probes that temporarily shock the fish as the boat slowly moves forward, fish come to the surface, staff on rubber maps net them, put them in a water tank then transfer to a 2nd boat where stats are taken, fish are then released with no harm being done. It's an interesting operation - the lake is divided into 5 sections, the shock boat runs for 15 minutes in each area to obtain section data. I'm glad we arrived early so we could participate in all these activities !