Chris McLeland displays a large lake sturgeon caught using a monofilament gill net on the Mississippi river below Mel Price Lock and Dam, while Chris Clemens looks on in the foreground. - FWS photo by Nate Caswell

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a close community where getting the job done is important not only for individual offices, but for the entire region as well.  That was evidenced during March, when the Columbia Fishery Resources Office sent two technicians per week to support field sampling efforts of an understaffed Carterville FRO.  Columbia staff included:  Christopher Clemens, Derek Eisenbrei, Colby Wrasse, Christopher McLeland, and Kyle Winders.

The transition to working on the Mississippi River was made easy by the leadership of Nathan Caswell, Fishery Biologist at Carterville FRO.  Caswell had to exercise patience in properly orienting his rotating crew to the nuances of working on the rising Mississippi River, where faster flow rates and deeper gear sets of hoop and gill nets made for arduous retrieval. 

Two sampling techniques new to the Columbia staff were bow trawling and deep water electro fishing.  Deep water electro fishing sets the electrodes as deep as 40 feet to sample benthic fish.  It serves as an effective way to sample scours above and below wing dikes, as evidenced by their catching several giant blue catfish along with Asian carp, freshwater drum, channel catfish, etc.  Since the electro fishing boat must steer a consistent course, a chase boat is used to retrieve fish that surface, normally occurring several meters downstream.

The Columbia FRO showed great teamwork and devotion, allowing Carterville to achieve their mission successfully.  CFRO has been very gracious in their appreciation of Columbia's support.  This teamwork between the two offices has been going on for several years and will continue in the future.