I've been lucky enough to get out from behind the computer and lab bench a few times over the past week to do some field work. What it looked like this time around was pretty posh, as far as fieldwork goes: a wealthy local's "deer camp" (AKA vacation home up near Eagle Lake) loaned to the fish crew here at ERDC, which provided a flushing toilet and BBQ grill for non-PBJ lunches. You don't get that very often! (Usually it's "find a tree" and grab Subway take-out on the way to midnight bat sampling...) It's only a 45 minute drive, so travel has been minimal (always nice when you can be home in time for dinner!), the fish guys grilled up chicken sandwiches and smoked pork butt, and we sat in the chigger-free short grass in the shade. Posh. When not sitting around and eating (and sharing field stories and talking about current and past projects and other work related gossip), we set lead line nets (with a contracted commercial fisherman), checked the nets every hour or so, and "swam" silver and big head carp in a giant velocity stream tank (each fish swam for about an hour before tiring and thus ending the experiment). Once the fish guys were done with their carp, I stepped in to grab my DNA sample (since they're an invasive, exotic species, I didn't have to bother with non-invasive sampling, but rather took a lovely chunk of liver after all the measurements were taken, before being whisked away to an old chest freezer ice chest by the commercial fisherman - yes, people do eat carp). We captured both species in the nets, and had a few silver carp jump into the boat of their own volition (cover your face!), plus a few other species that I was able to get DNA samples from (blue catfish and small mouth buffalo, plus non-invasive fin clips from some paddlefish, since they need to be released). We saw plentiful deer, a raccoon, a large flock of swallows (nesting beneath the "deer camp"), an alligator, and no snakes. Score. I've had a great time out there and would definitely tag along again if I had the chance.
High water out there!
(That rooftop is about 4 ft above the water line, and there is a walkway with hand rails buried under about a foot of water.) The sampling site is Forest Home Chute, which is about halfway between the Mississippi River and Eagle Lake.
Nothing better on a hot and humid day than a speedy boat ride to cool you off!
Releasing the paddlefish downstream from the nets.
It was very cool to see these in the wild!
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