Saturday, August 21, 2010

The Beginning of a New Adventure

Haystack Rock in the Cape ~2 miles from my house.
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/1234b3/
I am moved into the double-wide (or as my boss calls it "Whisky Tango" for white trash haha). I don't have photos because I had a sad loss in my life... my camera. Somewhere in the excitement of moving from Idaho to Oregon my precious little guy got lost. So in a paycheck or two I may have a replacement. 
Chinook Salmon
http://www.usgs.gov/features/lewisandclark/images/Chinook_Salmon.jpg
Week one as an ODFW employee was 1000x better than being an intern in Idaho. Tonight at 6pm we will go out and go "fishing." ODFW "fishing" goes something like this: head out to a deep holding pool for migrating Chinook, set a net, watch the net until a fish hits it, retrieve said fish, then take scales, fork length, and mark it with an "opercle punch." This is a mark-recapture study, so we mark as many chinook as we can, then once they have spawned and died we look at the carcasses and determine the population through ratios of unmarked and marked carcasses. To administer an opercle punch, we use hand held paper punches to punch a hole, or mark, in the fish's operculum (the hard bony part protecting the fish's gills). We work nights to avoid the public eye. The chinook fishery is a very touchy subject out here, and in order to efficiently fish without too much disturbance, we fly by night. So I will let you all know how it goes!

Well, once Andrew gets out here, I will put up pics of the double-wide, and hopefully have some good fishing tales!

1 comment: