Ice Fishing

Tuesday night I went out to Cooney Dam to ice fish for ling with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and the Wildlife Management class. The nice thing about going with FWP is that instead of only setting up two lines, we set up 55, so we were bound to catch something. On the other hand, we had to set up, check, and take out 55 lines. This picture was taken at one of our first holes. The sun was setting as we arrived, so not only did the lighting get tricky, but it got cold! Sticking our hands into icy water did not help, but eventually we got all the lines set in time for one last look at daylight.

After dinner we headed out to check our lines, and had success!




We killed all the fish we caught (except one who is now living in the lab at Rocky), then weighed, measured, and dissected them. We looked at sex, stomach contents and otoliths (ear bones that show how old the fish is). I had fun taking pictures of Ben and Jeremiah using only the lighting from the headlamps.














After several rounds of checking lines, then dissecting fish we finally pulled all the lines and I got this last shot of Mike pulling in a ling.