Fish(es) of the Year

We have now reached the real holiday season, the time I designate a "Fish of the Year".

Normally, the Fish of the Year is the ending paragraph on the family Christmas letter. This being the first year of The Happy Anachronism, it seems appropriate to post it here.

Past winners were some pretty remarkable animals and not necessarily fish. One was a very large warmouth. One year it was a hefty Yellowstone cuthroat trout. Once it was a good sized smallmouth my son caught on the Little Vermilion. Another time it was the bear we saw walking through the door of a public restroom at Yosemite National Park (potty trained bears...who'd a thunk).

This year there are several compelling entries:

1. Takauki's big smallmouth bass.



Taka was an exchange student who stayed with us during the spring. He was an enthusiastic angler and it was a pleasure to show him around. This particular fish has a complicated story attached to it, but still represents all the good times we had fishing during his visit.

For sheer goodwill and all around enjoyment, Taka's big smallmouth bass is this year's fish of the year.

2. Massive southern stingray (5' total length) caught on 10 pound line.



We catch these sometimes when I fish with George on Placencia Lagoon. My first experience came one night after I had called it quits. George wanted to fish a bit more. He was bottom fishing with a handline using a frozen shrimp on a single hook.

I was upstairs cooking supper when I heard him calling for me. Loudly.

I scrambled downstairs and arrived to find something literaly tearing line through his grip. The spool of his handline was almost gone. I grabbed on and through both our efforts we managed to stop the run. Briefly. When it took off again it ripped line through all four of our hands.

Standing in the dark on the bank of a place like Placencia Lagoon attached to an animal completely out of your control despite your best efforts to stop him tends to inspire the imagination. It also calls into question just exactly who is catching whom. Sharks. Crocodiles. Goliath Grouper. Had we snagged one of those? We'd never find out for sure. During a hard run I clamped down to try to force the issue. The 30 pound monofilament popped like a thread.

George was pretty sure that fish was a stingray. I tend to agree. It took hard runs and then just stopped. We could pull it gradually toward us during those pauses, but it seemed strangely heavy as if it were resting on the bottom.

Two days later, another big fish struck my line and fought exactly the same way. This time, however, I was using an old Ugly Stick and 10 pound monfilament. Much of the fight consisted of watching him strip line off my reel. At one point, I was struggling to keep from losing the last 20 feet of line.

Pull the rod tip high, then reel slack furiously as it descends. Repeat.

I'd take some line. He'd take it back. Then he'd sit on the bottom. I'd pull him toward me with gradually increasing force until I'd feel a "give" on his end. It was almost as if a suction was breaking between his body and the bottom. It took a while, but I finally landed this stingray.

Then began a whole new bout of problems. This was a big angry animal. His head was pointed into the water and his tail was pointed at me, lashing the water with no minor amount of malice. With Steve Irwin's fate firmly in my mind, I contemplated my options.

1. Pop the line and let him figure out how to ditch the hook.
2. Drag him onshore and see if George wanted to eat him.
3. Remove the hook and release him.

Local people core the wings of stingrays for a faux "scallop" (actually tastes quite good) but George wasn't home and no one was handy to take this brute. I also especially dislike releasing fish with hooks in them (unless they've been swallowed). I settled on #3.

Now how to deal with that tail and barb lashing visciously back and forth? Hmm. Can't turn him. Can't flip him without getting close. Hey. There's a cinderblock. Let's drop the cinderblock on the tail to immobilize it so I can reach under and unhook him. Brilliant.

Three times I managed to place the cinderblock on his tail and three times the stingray sent that cinderblock flying. Ok. Not so brilliant. Nothing else was in reach. The animal was stressing. With regrets I popped the line and he slowly swam away. Over time the hook will come out on its' own. I was not pleased to leave it there, but I also didn't feel like fencing with that barb.

The leader on the line I was casting was about 3 feet long and it was approximately the same size as that stingray's body. Add the length of tail and this was a big, big fish. Five feet plus. He was by far my biggest fish of the year and the best fight I've had on hook and line since the four foot barracuda in 2006.

Truly, this was a worthy runner-up.

3. Sleigh-ride carp.

There's a film of this little debacle in this post.

http://brooksmith.blogspot.com/2008/07/common-carp-thug-on-loose.html#links

If you've ever been towed 100 yards downstream in a kayak through overhanging brush by an 8 pound muck sucker, you probably understand why this one made the list.

I vote that we have no repeat nominees along similar lines.

4. 500 pound West Indian manatee caught with Wildlife Trust on Placencia Lagoon.



Ok, yes, it's not a fish and technically I didn't catch it. Still, helping the Wildlife Trust capture and tag manatees was probably the field work highlight of the year if not the decade. I've spent a lot of time looking at the snouts of these animals and it was interesting to get a look at the whole thing...

...and of course, this also gives me another opportunity to talk about Placencia Lagoon, where I'll be spending quite a lot of time next year.

Thanks to all of you who are following the blog. It has indeed been a fun and interesting 2008.

Mangrove Planting for Nutrient Retention and Shoreline Stabilization

Mangrove planting continues for the WWF climate change program. This has been a busy week.

The first planting was at Royal Maya, a local shrimp farm. We started the day with a tour of the lagoon with Independence High School students. That's me striking a Charelton Heston pose during a lecture about water quality. We borrowed a datasonde from the Southern Environmental Association and followed salinity and dissolved oxygen gradients around the lagoon. It was a spiffy tour.

After the lagoon tour we went to Royal Maya Shrimp Farm to see what kinds of things they are doing to improve their effluent water quality.

Here's one of their sedimentation ponds where we planted mangrove. We had already planted some mangrove in Royal Maya last August. This farm is participating in a study to verify the effects of effluent treatment as a part of the WWF ecocertification movement. They are also planning to add more sedimentation ponds and by the time we finish this project, all of their sedimentation ponds will be lined with mangroves. Growth of mangroves in nutrient-rich water can be quite rapid. In this environment, they will sequester tons of nitrogen and phosphorus annually.

Here's Adrian Vernon in the peach-colored fishing shirt giving a lecture on how to plant propagules. Adrian has an encyclopedic knowledge of natural things. He is also a gourmet chef and a pretty fair chicken fighter (the piggy back kind you do in the water).

In short order, we had planted 1,000 mangroves along the shores of the sedimentation pond. Those will take up nutrients, stabilize the bank, enhance settlement of particulate matter and reduce nutrient loads downstream from the farm. Many thanks to teacher Abigail and the Biology and Environmental Science students from Independence High School in Independence Village. The future future of the lagoon and the natural resources of Belize are in your good hands.

The next day, we planted in Placencia Village. As you can see from the backhoe in the background, mangroves are being removed from shorelines in the village at a rapid pace. We hope to accelerate the process of recovery after shoreline development by replanting of mangroves there. This process benefits not only the natural environment by limiting sediment resuspension, retaining waste and providing habitat, it also helps land owners and community members by stabilizing shorelines and preventing the loss of land by wave action.

By the end of the day, we had planted 3,000 propagules on disturbed banks along the western side of the village.

Some of the propagules were also planted along seawalls. Seawalls are used to keep shorelines intact, but over time wave action tends to undermine and destroy them. The seawalls in the photos here are just a few years old, but you can see the places where they are already beginning to lean and rust away. Mangroves are a living seawall that compensate for wave action. We hope to extend the life of the seawall and provide further protection for shorelines. Old canals lined with mangroves are still in good condition after 30 years and more. You'll be hard pressed to find a bare Placencia seawall that has lasted so long.

Adrian is pleased by our progress so far.

We'll see how our propagules develop over time. During the next 6 months we'll also run a workshop and a national contest for mangrove-friendly shoreline development. Belize needs economic development, but they need ideas that accomplish development in ways that doesn't harm the natural beauty of the country that supported the traditional culture of Belize and attracted foriegn investors in the first place.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Snakeheads in the Mississippi River basin

We can thank the state of Arkansas for introducing silver carp, bighead carp, grass carp, black carp and now snakehead to our rivers.

http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=52283&mid=367517#M367517

Could someone please explain to me how one group of people can be so persistently stupid? If there were justice in the world God would take away all their fish as punishment. Maybe that's on tap now.

Snakesheads established in the Mississippi River basin have access to most of North America. You thought 50 pound silver carp hurling themselves into boats was fun?

Mizlan! We need you!!

Planting red mangrove propagules in Belize

Despite a bit of inexplicable strangeness (baffled apologies to anyone affected), the last week has gone relatively well.

We planted 3,000 red mangrove propagules in shrimp farms and around the community of Placencia, Belize. Red mangroves are the dominant shoreline vegetation in Belize and they have been removed from many areas to clear shorelines for human use. Adrian Vernon and I are working on a project to replant them where we can, and to use them to retain nutrients by planting them in effluents from shrimp farms (see earlier posts).

A red mangrove propagule looks like this....

They grow in trees like this....

To pick them you drive a boat out the mangroves fringing the lagoon and get to work....


...and with a bit of effort you can assemble a huge number of shore stabilizing, nutrient retaining, habitat providing seeds.

But be sure to take your community mangrove pickers swimming at the end of the day.

And then check to see how your propagules are progressing over time. This batch we planted with Dr. Cheeseman from the University of Illinois is perking along with a 97% survival rate so far. Sweet.

Stay tuned for more pictures and updates. There's plenty more work to do.

More Belize Work

If you get a chance, check this out...

http://placencialagoon.blogspot.com/

Fall fell

So much for intution.

The river was an absolute slurry of leaves and the best I could manage was 2 or 3 bites.

Places like the one above that I would normally fish intensively were simply impenetrable. Leaves were on the top, bottom and in between. Even casting into low-density areas I was catching leaves much of the time. I ended up throwing tubes and a single hooked mepps simply because they had a low profile and snagged less often. Unfortunately they were not what was on the menu. I doubt the poor fish could even see my lure most of the time. The few places that weren't socked in with leaves weren't exactly on fire.

Also with the canopy opening, all that sunlight on the stream bottom has set off a chladophora bloom...

...and the water is also incredibly clear so when the fish did find the lure they tended to short strike. I saw two fish do this close to shore.

I could probably find another excuse, but I'll leave it at three.

Conditions were hard, harder, hardest, and I got skunked.

It was, however, a beautiful day.

Since I can't post a fish, I'll settle for a bit of info about the river.

One thing I enjoy about this river is the abundance of fossils that can be found along the banks. Most of them seem to be from the Carboniferous era and not especially charistmatic but things like chironoids are ubiquitous. Corals, bivalves and even old plant fossils are relatively easy finds. Once in a while I'll find a nice fern or shell.

The fossil above was found on a bank immediately downstream from this...

The amount of coal in Illinois boggles the mind sometimes. In some areas, it's one of the more common types of substrate. Seams like this one are everywhere.

It's little wonder our junior senator favors clean coal technology. We're swimming in the stuff.