Finally, We Have A November Collection Of Telescope Shiners

It wouldn't seem to be that big a deal, but today's trip to Estill Fork gave us our first collection of telescope shiners for November. We need that to complete our survey of gill fluke infestation rates in telescopes in the Estill Fork/Hurricane Creek system. Today's collection was about 35 telescopes, and thanks to Brittany and Tessa for their part. It was Tessa's first work pulling a seine which I sometimes forget is not an entirely natural skill to possess, especially when dealing with fast-flowing water. But the weather was mild today and the water pleasant (12 deg. C).

And of course we ran the drift net, took a water sample for analysis, and shuffled for macroinvertebrates along our two transects. The immediately obvious difference in today's collection was that some kind of serious insect hatch was happening, and we probably netted several hundred of whatever they are.

The first photo is Brittany and me doing the shuffle transect. I'm wearing my brand new waders, which really truly need suspenders to hold them up.

Here's a close-up of my feet in shallow water, along with the drift net, the two steel rods for staking it in place and the sample bucket holding the drift capture -