This morning, we all had the great opportunity to go electrofishing in the creek upstream from the dam! With help from Tim Wilson from PA Fish and Boat, we sent an electric current through the water strong enough to stun the fish, but without causing most of them any harm. When the fish were stunned, they turned over onto their backs on the bottom of the stream, which made them much easier to spot and scoop up with our nets. We moved upstream through the ripples and eventually ended our search in a calm pool. All in all, we caught 12 different species of fish, including greenside and rainbow darters, river chub, logperch, and smallmouth bass. Learning about how to identify all the different kinds of fish and what their characteristics tell us about how they live was not just interesting, but a really fun hands-on experience!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
What a Shock!: Electrofishing
This morning, we all had the great opportunity to go electrofishing in the creek upstream from the dam! With help from Tim Wilson from PA Fish and Boat, we sent an electric current through the water strong enough to stun the fish, but without causing most of them any harm. When the fish were stunned, they turned over onto their backs on the bottom of the stream, which made them much easier to spot and scoop up with our nets. We moved upstream through the ripples and eventually ended our search in a calm pool. All in all, we caught 12 different species of fish, including greenside and rainbow darters, river chub, logperch, and smallmouth bass. Learning about how to identify all the different kinds of fish and what their characteristics tell us about how they live was not just interesting, but a really fun hands-on experience!
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3 comments:
I bet every old fisherman out there would love to use the electroshock fishing technique...but then again, it's all about the challenge.
Yes definitely an easier way to catch fish but what does it mean that it only stunned "most" of the fish? From the pictures, it looks like it was a great and up close experience to see what was in the creek.
That's a stunning amount of fish! Glad none were harmed in the experiment.
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