TRAA Salmonid Monitoring
Spring 2011
TRAA members and personnel from the Upper Thames
River Conservation Authority (UTRCA) are conducting a
5-year
Salmonid Tagging and Monitoring Program.
Click Here for pictures and descriptions from Year 2 (2012).
Here's an overview of what happened in 2011.
John Schwindt from the Upper Thames River Conservation
Authority probes the depths of Komoka Creek looking
for returning steelhead (lake-run rainbow trout).
While John continues checking out likely looking spots,
Bryon Mott apparently seems exited about something
everyone else seems to have missed!
A heavy male rainbow trout captured for his vital
statistics:
length, girth, check for fin clips and a scale
sample for
DNA. This work is done quickly to ensure a
minimum of stress to the fish prior to release.
This male rainbow trout was measured, tagged,
sampled
for DNA testing and released back into
the stream. The impact on the fish was minimal.
Tye is the landowner's dog. We spent a great deal
of
time making sure Tye was not in the water while
we were electro-shocking. He was very interested
in
the tagging technique displayed by Paul Noble
and
Lawson Jones.
The tagging actually consists of "sewing" a small,
plastic
tag to the dorsal fin of the rainbow trout.
The tag has a number sequence that will help the
OMNR and the TRAA to understand the fish's activities.
This is why it's so important for you to report a
tagged
fish as soon as possible.
Scale samples are taken from every tagged fish for DNA
analysis to determine age and genetic classification.
This rainbow trout is a "repeat customer". She was
tagged
during one of our 2010 outings. How cool is that!
Every now and then a trout eludes the gauntlet of nets.
As you can tell by their faces, it's usually a big one.
One of the really awesome aspects of capturing
the returning rainbow trout is you don't always get what
you expect. Brian Mott displays one of the many resident
brown trout that we encountered as Krystal Jones looks on.
After all the scientific measurement crap that the trout
goes through, it needs to be carefully released.
Stephen Jones safely releases another tagged and
documented rainbow trout.
Click Here for pictures and descriptions from Year 3 (2012).