I have had difficulty maintaining a consistent internet connection so I haven’t had a chance to update people on my work. Things have been busy with height of field season underway and I have been involved with a number of projects. One of the more interesting days on the water has been when we trammel netted Clear Lake, a back water lake of the Illinois River, targeting asian carp for an experiment involving the hybridization of silver carp and bighead carp and making a guide to identifying a hybridized individual as well as what generation it is. There were a lot of very large fish in the net, which mostly consisted of bighead carp including a fish going over 40″ and close to 30lbs that would have been closer to 60lbs had the body condition not been so poor, which was the case on a lot of the fish. I personally think this is a sign that the carp have reached, or are close to reaching a carrying capacity in the Illinois River.

There was some bycatch in the nets as there were also some channels catfish as well as the paddlefish pictured above. There was also a giant freshwater drum, the biggest I had ever seen, which is pictured below, as well as a flathead catifsh and some common carp.





Two weeks ago we captured an American Eel in a hoop net, which is a rarity as it is only the third one in 29 years captured by LTRMP. It was frozen and sent off for otolith microchemistry research.



Some cool fish that we have gotten electrofishing





I have also done a little fishing when I have had time. I fished a pond in Oswego when I was visiting friends in Chicago a few weekends ago and caught some nice bass up there on soft plastics.





I also got my first musky at Spring Lake on a weedless swimbait.


I was playing around with my camera and got some sweet underwater shots as well.




The bass was one of the best shots I have ever taken and I am going to get a poster made of it. A lot of luck went into it as the water had to be clear, and the fish couldn’t spook. The fish actually seemed interested in the camera and almost seemed like they were posing for it which was kind of cool. I am going to return to this pond and see if I can get some action shots of them taking lures. That is all for now, keep tuned in as I am sure there will be some more stuff in the future pending internet connection.

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