Action Photos From Estill Fork Last Sunday

Tessa gave me these photos yesterday. She took a whole bunch of pictures while on the bank as we netted fish. But that's good, we have some shots of darter dancing in action, on this trip with Brittany doing the dancing while Andrew and I hold the net. As you see below, the water was reasonably deep and certainly fast-flowing.

The first shot is looking in the net after doing a dance routine. On the first net or two we actually caught some telescope shiners, we're not always that lucky.

We're just starting to pull up the net in this next shot, trying not to catch Brittany in the lead line. At this point I had not convincingly cinched the belt on my waders...

This is the beginning of the darter dance routine, Andrew and I are trying to pull the net upstream slowly while Brittany skips downstream towards us. The trick in this is to keep the bottom lead line of the net on the bottom, since any fish in the net will try to swim under the net.

This was our access point from the neighboring field. We were doing our water chemistry monitoring after the netting, checking a water sample for pH, total dissolved solids and temperature (12.5 deg. C). The cooler is what I carry all of these accoutrements and chemicals in, along with my log book.

Andrew demonstrates what happens when your waders leak. We've found that inexpensive waders, like the $30 ones from Dick's Sports, last about a year before they begin to go. My super upscale insulated waders, designed for duck hunting, seem to last about 5 years and cost $120. I think I'm going to buy a cheap set of waders for use on warmer days in the winter.

Finally, I've been trying to take photos of the County Road bridge across Estill Fork where we park as a monitor of water conditions. This view is towards the mountain with Hurricane Creek, on the Walls of Jericho property, on the far side. The upper Paint Rock system is a series of long, narrow valleys separated by steep mountains running up into Tennessee and the higher parts of the Cumberland Plateau just to the north.