Week 7, July 3rd: Everything is Going Swimmingly
July 5th, Wednesday:
Today was the big day. Emily and I met at Echo Bay Marina to depart with our first captain, Alan Brooks. Joining us today also was David, a rising college senior who has been helping out Larry and the CLA. Together, the four of us returned to Danbury once again to test the site for the third time.
Emily and I were expecting to see a rather drastic change in fish locations. Just the night before, Danbury was alight with fireworks, and packed from shore to shore with boats for the Fourth of July. AS expected, many fish we had been hearing all summer strongly in Danbury were now faint. As we always inspect the four corners of the Danbury cove when we sample, there are very few places these fish would be able to hide. Instead, we believe that the fish had dove down to the bottom of the lake, having been scared by the increase in boat traffic. This agrees with past findings that the Triploid Grass Carp are skittish in nature.
July 7th, Friday:
As of now, Emily and I are finished with data collection. Because of this, we will be focusing our time on data analysis and preparing for the July 21st presentation of our findings. Emily and I hope to find a correlation between milfoil bed size and fish movement. If a fish is found to be near a large milfoil bed, the fish movement (in meters) should be low. This will provide a view into if the fish are doing their job effectively or not. We will provide updates into trends and the project in general as the days go by, so be sure to check back regularly! Or, better yet and subscribe to be emailed when future blogs are posted!
