Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Chignik Olympics II


Fishing. OK, this is a bit of a stretch, but hey, we spend a bit of time fishing; some for fun, some for science, and sometimes your arm gets sore from all of the casting. Tish wore herself out fighting a couple of nice halibut a while back

Boat pushing. Ah, the dark side of Black Lake trips. To get into the Alec River, we navigate two deltas, and each has its pitfalls. Late season when the snow is gone and the water is low can be treacherous. At its worst we have to take all of the heavy items out of the boat and push until we find knee deep water, then reload everything and hope the cooling system isn't completely jammed with sand.

Net pulling. Well, our job here is to catch fish after all, and the fly rod only goes so far. In the end we pull lots of nets, usually beach seines in Chignik Lake, Black lake, and Chignik Lagoon. This is probably our most common "activity."

OK, net pulling gets two. Conrad has been conducting research on pygmy whitefish for a couple of years here. In order to catch the deep morph we sink small-mesh gill nets to the bottom of Chignik Lake (~180 ft.) and pull them up each day. Its a haul.


The Chignik Olympics are nearly over for this season, but if we leave with all of our digits intact we are all winners right? Someone help Jen on to the podium.

1 comment:

claire said...

I think boat pushing looks most impressive, although barrel rolling isn't far behind. It looks like you had a great summer.