7/18/2013-First Day of Trapping

This was the first day of trapping. None of the scientists working on deck had ever worked on this boat before. Two are experienced at trapping. The rest were totally green. It was super cute because they teacher, grad student & less experienced folks were extra excited about everything that came up. Sometimes you forget how novel some of this stuff is, how different it is for those who’ve never done it before. It is good to be reminded of this fact.

Before breakfast, the scientists on deck baited 6 traps with menhaden, a stinky, oily fish that brings in the fish we want to catch. After breakfast we arrived on station & set up each trap with the two different types of video cameras that I maintain. A Canon video camera in an underwater housing is posted overlooking the mouth of the trap. A GoPro is pointed the opposite direction on top of the trap to capture habitat that might be behind the mouth.

Cameras are used on the traps for two reasons. One reason is to check for “reefy” type habitat, where the fish we are after might like to live. If a trap is deployed on “non-reef,” we can often disregard the fact that there were no fish inside of it, because we wouldn’t expect the fish to live in that area, anyway. The other (and the reason a higher quality camera-Canon camcorder is used) is that a lot of fish species we are interested in learning about aren’t always interested in entering traps. They may be present in the area, but not go into the trap. Therefore, we can use the video record to determine who was around the trap, even if the trap doesn’t catch any fish (reading the videos for fish was something I did before becoming a teacher & something I still do on the side).

Once the traps are set up, the officer driving the boat drives to the place where the PI (principle investigator) has decided he wants the traps to be set. Once the boat is in position, the Pisces deck crew launch the trap over the side (This is a job that is often done by the scientists, but not on this boat). Once the trap has gone in the water, we move on to the next location. Once traps have soaked for approximately 90 minutes, it’s time to bring them back onboard & find out what was captured, and download the videos to a hard drive to determine what types of habitat were present and what types of fish were present who may not have entered the trap.

This day of trapping was not super exciting. In the first 6 traps, we caught a fairly large number of red porgy (Pagrus pagrus), which is a neat fish, but in my experience often indicates a kindof mediocre habitat. Not a whole lot of other “reef” species like to live in the areas where red porgies live. We did capture some of the largest ones anyone onboard had ever seen. One was almost 2 feet long, which is huge for a red porgy. We also caught 2 greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili) in one of those traps. After completing the first set of the day it was time to break for lunch (a hard morning’s work, ha ha!). During lunch, we motored to the next set of trap sites, and were on station by about 1215 to throw another set of traps over the side. 

There is Coast Guard mandate that all ships of a certain size must complete drills ((man-overboard, fire, and abandon ship) within 24 hours of getting underway (this happens even on cruise ships). The crew had scheduled our drills for 1230, so once we got the gear in the water, the whole ship’s company moved into “fire drill.” For us, this meant a lot of standing around (since they don’t want to scientists to get in the way while the crew is trying to fight a fire). We moved into an abandon ship drill in which the whole ship’s company pretends that the ship is sinking VERY slowly. We arrive at our muster station with a PFD, immersion suit, long pants, hats, etc. to increase the chances of long-term survival in a life raft. We even had to put the immersion suits on, which is always an experience.

Once drills were over, we hauled the second set of traps, which had been soaking during this time. The first 2 traps were blanks, no fish at all. The next 3 had a few Pagrus in them. The last one had a good variety. Along with the Pagrus, there was a scamp (Mycteroperca phenax) and a moray eel, which are always a bit dicey to handle.  I got everything downloaded & got cameras ready for tomorrow. A very short & easy day at sea for me.

We are currently using the multibeam bathymetry mapping equipment to find new locations to place traps tomorrow. The ship will continuing “running lines” until we have mapped the entire bottom in this one area, looking for reef-type habitats.