For the past three years Columbia NFWCO has teamed up with Dr. Douglas Noltie and the University of Missouri (MU) to complete his Fisheries Techniques course with a river component. 

Dr. Noltie’s Fish Tech class is largely focused on small impoundment management.  Realizing riverine fisheries management is a growing component of fisheries sciences in the United States, Dr. Noltie has enlisted the help of the Columbia NFWCO to assist in teaching the class.

Fourteen “would be biologist” met NFWCO staff at the boat ramp ready to work on the Big Muddy.  Students were divided into four teams to get hands-on training in stern trawling, set lines, hoop nets and drifting trammel nets.  Fish Biologists Nick Utrup, Andy Plauck, Branch Chief Wyatt Doyle and Fish Biologist Jeff Finely rotated groups of students through each of the stations. 

Objectives of working on the river were discussed as well as the different projects the Columbia NFWCO works on.  The students enjoyed experiencing a different aspect to fisheries management and a change in scenery from the ponds they had been working on all semester.  A change in fauna from bass, bluegill and channel catfish to sturgeon, flathead catfish, drum, buffalo, blue suckers and Asian carp was refreshing to the students as well.