June 17, 2011 Cowlitz Bay
Shortly before 4:00 pm, it was a sunny day. Clouds moved in rapidly. We seined at 16:45 under an overcast sky in murky, rippled water, turbid to 10 - 15 meters out. Air temp. was 60ºF or 16ºC, water temp 48ºF or 9ºC. Water density 1024, 31ppthousand; and 1025, 33 ppt. By the time we were finished at 20:00, there was a brisk breeze and people were covered with goose bumps. Low tide -2.7 at 12:30, High tide 9.1 at 20:52.
The wrack line extended along the whole beach, mostly kelp. Eelgrass wrack at the high tide line. Glen R. took the readings and Dana S recorded.
The wrack line extended along the whole beach, mostly kelp. Eelgrass wrack at the high tide line. Glen R. took the readings and Dana S recorded.
June 17 Net Record
10 Greenling - Kelp
10 - White-spotted
40 Gunnel spp
6 Gunnel - saddleback
101 Herring, from 95 to 184 mm
2 Perch - shiner, a representative one at 100 mm
88 Perch - striped, from 50 to 120 mm
33 Pipefish
1 Rockfish - canary. This is the first time we've caught one in our years of seining. It was about 200 mm long.
10 Rockfish - copper. These have been protected for two years because of their decline. We have been catching juveniles in our Cowlitz seines, and speculate that we host a Copper rockfish nursery here. Adults are known to congregate at Bell Island in deep water, and possibly elsewhere. See below for lavage. They ranged in size from 85 to 198 mm.
6 Rockfish - quillback
30 Salmon - chum
184 Salmon - chinook, from 85 to 134 mm.
4 Salmon - pink
265 Salmon - either pink or chum, around 95 mm.
6 Sculpin spp
25 Smelt; from 150 to 230 mm.
55 Snake Prickleback
14 Tubesnout
1 Sturgeon poacher
1 larval fish.
Lots of coonstripe shrimp. Moon Jelly, Graceful kelp crab, Helmet crab.
10 - White-spotted
40 Gunnel spp
6 Gunnel - saddleback
101 Herring, from 95 to 184 mm
2 Perch - shiner, a representative one at 100 mm
88 Perch - striped, from 50 to 120 mm
33 Pipefish
1 Rockfish - canary. This is the first time we've caught one in our years of seining. It was about 200 mm long.
10 Rockfish - copper. These have been protected for two years because of their decline. We have been catching juveniles in our Cowlitz seines, and speculate that we host a Copper rockfish nursery here. Adults are known to congregate at Bell Island in deep water, and possibly elsewhere. See below for lavage. They ranged in size from 85 to 198 mm.
6 Rockfish - quillback
30 Salmon - chum
184 Salmon - chinook, from 85 to 134 mm.
4 Salmon - pink
265 Salmon - either pink or chum, around 95 mm.
6 Sculpin spp
25 Smelt; from 150 to 230 mm.
55 Snake Prickleback
14 Tubesnout
1 Sturgeon poacher
1 larval fish.
Lots of coonstripe shrimp. Moon Jelly, Graceful kelp crab, Helmet crab.
June 17 Lavage
We lavaged 55 Chinook salmon. We began to notice that the hatchery fish seemed to have a yellower color than the wild fish. They showed personal preferences in eating, some barfing up krill, others larval fish. One had targeted squid, which was the first time we saw this. They all survived their experience, from netting through waiting in their aerated buckets, through lavage, through recovery, and back into the water. We are pretty proud of this!
We lavaged 10 Copper rockfish. This is a two-person job because they have a throat sphincter. One person holds the fish, taking care not to get spined. The other opens the mouth (same way you do it with a cat or dog, by pressing against the jaw joint), and then works a rubber tube over the tongue and then through the sphincter. A squirt of water makes it give up its stomach contents. All the rockfish either had empty stomachs or had eaten some kind of juvenile pandalid shrimp (that would be coonstripes or spot shrimp in our area). Because they are opportunistic predators, we made sure to separate them from the other fish in the holding net, otherwise they might have eaten the salmon.
We lavaged 10 Copper rockfish. This is a two-person job because they have a throat sphincter. One person holds the fish, taking care not to get spined. The other opens the mouth (same way you do it with a cat or dog, by pressing against the jaw joint), and then works a rubber tube over the tongue and then through the sphincter. A squirt of water makes it give up its stomach contents. All the rockfish either had empty stomachs or had eaten some kind of juvenile pandalid shrimp (that would be coonstripes or spot shrimp in our area). Because they are opportunistic predators, we made sure to separate them from the other fish in the holding net, otherwise they might have eaten the salmon.
*****
June 3, 2011 Cowlitz Bay
About 15 people of all ages attended, including Russel Barsh and Madrona Murphy from KWIAHT and their team. The weather was clear and sunny, with some cumulus clouds over San Juan Island. The water was rippled.
Glen R took the following readings, 10 meters out and 1/2 meter deep in the water at 16:15.
Salinity 1.024 or 32 ppt
Water Temperature 50º F or 10º C
Air Temperature 71ºF or 21ºC
The purposes of this year's seines depend on who you ask. KWIAHT is interested in:
1. Continuing last year's prey study. What do chinook eat? Is this related to their stream of origin? (tentative answer - yes, South Sound salmon eat more fish, North Sound salmon eat more insects). How does this change over the summer?
2. Beginning a new study. Quillback Rockfish are newly listed. Do they compete with salmon in what they prefer to eat? What else can we learn about them?
Glen R is interested in:
3. Herring. How big are they? Where do they come from? Are they breeding here? Etc.
Many of us are interested in
4. General overview. What's out there? What's the pattern over the summer?
Glen R took the following readings, 10 meters out and 1/2 meter deep in the water at 16:15.
Salinity 1.024 or 32 ppt
Water Temperature 50º F or 10º C
Air Temperature 71ºF or 21ºC
The purposes of this year's seines depend on who you ask. KWIAHT is interested in:
1. Continuing last year's prey study. What do chinook eat? Is this related to their stream of origin? (tentative answer - yes, South Sound salmon eat more fish, North Sound salmon eat more insects). How does this change over the summer?
2. Beginning a new study. Quillback Rockfish are newly listed. Do they compete with salmon in what they prefer to eat? What else can we learn about them?
Glen R is interested in:
3. Herring. How big are they? Where do they come from? Are they breeding here? Etc.
Many of us are interested in
4. General overview. What's out there? What's the pattern over the summer?
What's in the net?
The following list is not complete, but it reflects what was in the net. We used a ruler to measure the Chinook and the Quillback Rockfish, and guesstimation to measure all the other fish.
A few hundred larval Cod, which squirmed through the holes in the net, at about 15 mm
1 Greenling
Gunnel
73 generic
1 Saddleback Gunnel @ 152 mm
2 Herring
Perch:
9 Shiner, ranging up to 125 mm
196 Striped, ranging in size from 65 mm to 165 mm
2 Pipefish, at 130 and 175 mm
appx 10 Quillback Rockfish
Salmon:
22 Chum, ranging in size from 80 to 105 mm
175 Chinook, ranging in size from 65 to 120 mm
48 Pink
1 Sand Lance @56 mm
Sculpin
1 Silverspot Sculpin @ 127 mm
1 Staghorn Sculpin @ 178 mm
43 Snake Prickleback, one of them at 381 mm
1 Sturgeon Poacher
66 Tubesnout, at about 170 mm
Lots of coonstripe shrimp, from teeny to 100 mm
Lots of jellies, from practically invisible thumbnail sized ones to 30 mm
In the water: Lots of euphausids, or krill. David L says that there have been lots of larval crab.
A few hundred larval Cod, which squirmed through the holes in the net, at about 15 mm
1 Greenling
Gunnel
73 generic
1 Saddleback Gunnel @ 152 mm
2 Herring
Perch:
9 Shiner, ranging up to 125 mm
196 Striped, ranging in size from 65 mm to 165 mm
2 Pipefish, at 130 and 175 mm
appx 10 Quillback Rockfish
Salmon:
22 Chum, ranging in size from 80 to 105 mm
175 Chinook, ranging in size from 65 to 120 mm
48 Pink
1 Sand Lance @56 mm
Sculpin
1 Silverspot Sculpin @ 127 mm
1 Staghorn Sculpin @ 178 mm
43 Snake Prickleback, one of them at 381 mm
1 Sturgeon Poacher
66 Tubesnout, at about 170 mm
Lots of coonstripe shrimp, from teeny to 100 mm
Lots of jellies, from practically invisible thumbnail sized ones to 30 mm
In the water: Lots of euphausids, or krill. David L says that there have been lots of larval crab.
Gastric Lavage
The procedure is to keep the fish in an aerated bucket. One fish at a time, they are put into an anesthesia bath. When they are barely unconscious, we measure from nose to tail fork, clip their caudal fin for DNA analysis (stream-of-origin, Chinook only), pump water into their stomachs to make them vomit, put them into an aerated recovery bucket, and finally, when they're completely frisky again, return them to the water.
We lavaged 50 Chinook and about 10 Quillback Rockfish to see what they had been eating. Almost all of the Chinook had been eating Euphausids. There were several larval fish in the gut samples, as well as one insect. The rockfish had a different palate. They liked Euphausids well enough, but also ate larval coonstripe shrimp and ... wait for it ... juvenile Chinook.
One of the Chinook had a partially healed tail clip. The KWIAHT team had worked in Watmough Bay yesterday, catching larger Chinook than we saw in Cowlitz, but this fish couldn't have healed that fast. Somebody else is out there!
We were done at 20:30, but the sun was still up.