{"id":124909,"date":"2016-05-25T15:11:07","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T15:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/egg-collection-week-2\/"},"modified":"2016-05-25T15:11:07","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T15:11:07","slug":"egg-collection-week-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/egg-collection-week-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Egg Collection – Week 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wil Wegman<\/em><\/strong>
\n<\u00b0))))><<\/em><\/strong>
\nResource Management Technician
\nOntario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry
\nAurora District- 905-713-7730<\/p>\n

April 29th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh my! Another rather uneventful week on the Pool. \u00a0Much to our dismay, the weather continues to play havoc with our efforts to not only collect muskie eggs, but to even capture any muskie in our nets. If you recall from Update 1, we began our program on a real high note Monday April 18e<\/sup> and set our six trap nets during a 23 C heat wave as water temperatures were on the rise. Jump forward just one week though, and our dedicated MNRF crew along with a real trooper – Jim Crocker of the Orillia Fish and Game club, checked nets in a cold and blustery snow storm that more or less set the stage for the rest of the week.<\/p>\n

Here volunteer Jim Crocker makes a quick count of the fish he just scooped from the trap net before returning them to the lake. Some days this job means crews are challenged by what Mother Nature can throw at them, but invariably it\u2019s a day well spent and one for the memory books<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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On Tuesday we had strong winds forecasted, so had to cancel \u00a0the day. We hoped a 48 hour set would increase our catch rates for Wednesday, but that really didn\u2019t materialize except for an outstanding largemouth bass catch in one of our Little Lake sets that we affectionately call \u2018stumpy\u2019 . It is in an area is loaded with stumps and has accounted for many muskie over the last few years<\/p>\n

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Brianne Brothers (left) and Kate Gee show off some beautiful largemouth bass from our ol\u2019 stumpy set\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

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Brent with a nice smallmouth bass and Brianne with her largemouth<\/strong>
\n\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A<\/strong> net full of largemouth is never anything to be too upset about as long as they\u2019re all released in great shape says Wil \u2013 the self- diagnosed bass-a holic from Aurora District. He is flanked from behind \u00a0by Brent (left) and Steven Sucharzewski of Midhurst<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Interestingly enough, despite the low single digit temperatures that prevailed for most of the week, water temps stayed in the 8C range all week.\u00a0 Other years we have caught muskie during these low temps, but the big difference those years was usually that the barometer was rising steadily, and so too were water and air temps.<\/p>\n

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One of the highlights for the current Muskie netting crew is having the chance to be re-acquainted with former members \u00a0who were so instrumental in previous years. This was the case on Wednesday when Brent Shirley from Midhurst welcomed back Emily Funnell from Aurora District \u2013 who is now a biologist working on many Species At Risk Files for her district. Here Emily proudly hold a large Northern Map Turtle – A \u201cSpecies of Special Concern\u201d that was caught and released unharmed from one of our nets.<\/p>\n

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A familiar face for many Muskies Canada members \u2026 Aurora District\u2019s own Gabby Gilchrist shows one of several small (spawned out) northern pike caught from the trap nets this week. \u201cAt least it\u2019s an esocid\u201d<\/em> she said!<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we head into week three of this program the MNRF crews from Midhurst and Aurora had to discuss their plan of attack and contemplate what the weather forecast would mean for the week. To compound their efforts, a 3rd<\/sup> week of netting looks to be not much better than the first two weeks.<\/p>\n

Planning for Week 3:<\/strong><\/p>\n

As you can see the lows at night are still predicted to be in the single digits and even the day time highs remain well below seasonal norm. The chances therefore that we begin to see water temps rise over and above single digits does not look great. With this in mind, for week three, Kate and Wil will be begin by opening the nets on Sunday as usual, however from there crews will only be checking nets every other day. This will not lessen our ability to catch as many muskie as we normally would with 24 hour sets, however will maximize our resources as we prepare for full out success the following week and \u2026 if need be, perhaps even consider the week after.<\/p>\n

So with just two days on the water checking nets in week 3 (Tuesday and Thursday \u2026 Fridays we never fish nets as the Health Lab is unable to accept eggs for disease testing), I\u2019m sure you can appreciate the challenges we\u2019ve had juggling schedules \u2013 both with MNRF staff and the dedicated volunteers from Muskies Canada and Orillia Fish and Game. Right now, we\u2019ve made some changes, contacted all the players and are set to go \u2026 still hoping that in Week 3 that the weatherman will be wrong and water temps begin to rise steadily so that those mighty G Pool muskellunge begin to grace our presence once again.<\/p>\n

PS: \u00a0A Muskie Related Highlight:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just to end this somber update on a high note, on Thursday April 28e<\/sup>, we had our 2nd<\/sup> night of electro fishing the Holland River. On Wednesday, we saw the typical warm water species associated with this river. It was a long and very cold night \u2013 where landing nets actually froze to the metal guard rails when the crew was done at 2:00am.\u00a0 On Thursday things heated up \u2013 many more fish were seen, including one very nice looking muskie that was just out of reach of our anodes (that send the electrical current into the water) and subsequently did not entertain being captured by our landing nets. This muskie was in the meter long range and was clearly seen and identified by myself and two other crew mates. \u00a0\u00a0In the same general area another \u2018possible-likely\u2019 smaller muskie was seen, however our crew was not as confident as the first one.\u00a0 None the less, it was an exciting way to end the night and our week on the water.<\/p>\n

Thanks everyone for your patience and stay tuned for another report this same time next week.<\/p>\n

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We sure don\u2019t get many frogs in our nets, let alone big bubba\u2019s like this seldom-seen brown phased bullfrog.\u00a0 Brent was tempted to give this one a big kiss in hopes that it would turn into the big beautiful muskie princess that he\u2019s only been dreaming about. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wil Wegman <\u00b0))))>< Resource Management Technician Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry Aurora District- 905-713-7730 April 29th Oh my! Another rather uneventful week on the Pool. \u00a0Much to our dismay, the weather continues to play havoc with our efforts to not only collect muskie eggs, but to even capture any muskie in our nets. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology","category-lake-simcoe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muskies.kracmedia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}