On The Road and Sampling Fish

We have been swamped this spring. I was in Florida, Georgia & Alabama for thre of the past four weeks. Got home and did three days of sampling in East Texas and headed to Oklahoma next. We want to thank all our clients for continuing the support and passing our information on as we signed up several new clients this spring in four states. Above are a few photos of some quality fish we have seen over the past few weeks. As one of our new Technicians Clint Osteen said, "Electrofishing is fun, but its a lot of work!" Next is the not-so-glorious task of writing reports.

Nice Bass From The Hall Farm

One of our clients, the Hall Farm near Sylvester, Georgia, sent us this picture of a 12.9 lbs largemouth bass caught from one of their lakes. It was released to be caught another day. Nice fish!

Wild Florida Black Bear Sighting

While working in Florida last week on the way back from sampling one afternoon I came across a black bear in the Ocala National Forest. He was trying to get to a deer that had been hit by a car earlier and drag it back to the scrub oak approximately 50 yards from the road. There were already vultures on the deer, but since it was so fresh he really wanted that free meal. When I drove by he backed into the scrub, so I pulled over, assembled the camera and stood at the back of the boat and waited to see if he would come back out - and he did. He would head back into the woods every time a car came by, but he didn't seemed bothered by my truck parked across the road, and didn't notice me standing by the motor. I got a few good pictures. The next morning the deer was gone, so I think he eventually got the deer to the seclusion of the woods.

Nice St Johns River Bass

I was working on the St Johns River (Florida) the week of March 22nd collecting fish tissue samples for our Georgia Pacific study and we came across these two bass that weighed 11.5 and 8.5 collected near Welaka. They were released after the photos were taken. The water temperature that week was 58 and no spawning activity was observed. Females had not even developed eggs that could be squeezed out yet. We will be back starting the middle of next week electrofishing for fish population data, and I expect to see the largemouth bass spawn in full swing. This is one to two months later than normal in this area due to the cool weather.