#electrofishing

Today my salmon habitat assessment class went electrofishing in the river we've been working on! It was fun, our group caught the most fish (12!!) and they were all cutthroat fry. The way it works is one person carries a big battery on their back and uses a pole with a loop at the end to send a gentle current into the water, which stuns the fish temporarily and allows 2 other people to scoop them up in nets. Then when you catch one, you put it in a bucket that another person is carrying with some water in it so the fish don't suffocate. Then when you've done your segment of the river, you take the fish onto the bank and measure them one by one (which is hard, bc they are slippery and flop around a lot) and record the measurements. Each fish gets transferred into another bucket w water in it once it's measured. Then when you've measured all the fish, you release them into a place in the river that's relatively slow and sheltered so they can get their bearings. It's really fun and so cool to actually get to handle them (but also nerve wracking because you don't want them to flop out onto the ground where they're harder to find, and you can't hold them out if water for too long ofc). In case you were wondering, ours ranged from 35 mm to 72 mm. I hope they grow up to be big and healthy trout one day!