Friday, May 9

I was up at an ugly 7am this morning. I haven't gotten up that early since my last chemistry lab in university a month ago. So needless to say, I was feeling a little rough. We had some breakfast quick, and were on the water by 8 ready to go pull nets.
After pulling in all 6 nets, we had caught a total of 6 fish. After every net, you tag the fish you caught and then put them back in the water before pulling to next net so as to stress the fish as little as possible. It was very cold though, as the rope of the nets you are pulling in is soaking wet and you are out on the open water where it is windy and I think it was a charming 8 degrees out or something. I also hurt my shoulder a little pulling in an anchor, just because I had my arm in a weird position. You have to pull the cement block anchors up about 70ft from the bottom of the river while the current pushes against it. You will probably be able to call me "the gun show" by the end of the summer because my arm muscles will be huge.
Once all our nets were in, we went back to shore to re-tub our nets. Re-tubbing is not the funnest thing in the world but it has to be done. This is where you dump the nets out of their tub and slowly put it back in, making sure it is straight and free of sticks so that when you set the net next it goes in properly. It took about an hour and then we went and reset 3 of the nets for the afternoon.
We pulled in our 3 nets around 4, caught a couple fish, one with a circular mark on it from where a lamprey had been attached, and then reset 6 nets for overnight. We went back to the cabin for supper, watched the hockey game (the Penguins won!), played a game of crib and were in bed by 9 again.
I'm a little concerned about pulling in the nets in the days to come when the big sturgeon start to show up in the area to spawn. The nets are hard enough to pull into the boat against the current with nothing in them, I don't want to imagine what it's going to be like pulling the net in with a couple 90lb female sturgeon in it who are thrashing around because they are less than thrilled.