crazy 4 crayfish

I am so sleepy, recently returned from a full day of snorkeling for crayfish. I'm going to go to sleep now (it is 10:30). I feel like I'll be dreaming of crayfish tonight.


I'm gonna post a long post about all of my adventures tomorrow. here's what to look forward to:
- crayfish catching
- Ottawa Lake
- Guess How Long I Wore A Wetsuit
- my motor boat skills
- Scott's Sub Shop

So, the day was filled with so much crayfish catching! First we started out with Lindsey on Big Lake where she is measuring juvenile native crayfish growth and has placed individual containers with the juveniles into the shallow sites on the lake. Bradley and I were helping her check on the containers and measure their length. juveniles are usually between 7-11 mm long to they were quite tiny to find in these hand-held containers, and they're pretty good at hiding! oh and i'm gaining lots of other experiences too-- I drove the motor boat across the lake and back to the dock. :)

then we met up with Ashley who took us to Lake Ottawa, a lake about 45 minutes away where we were planning to catch adult crayfish and scuba to see spawning largemouth bass. unfortunately, it was too cold for the bass (13 degrees C--they need at least 15), but the lake was incredibly beautiful with an uninterrupted shoreline. This lake was also particularly special because there were no other boats out on the water and we were out for 6 hours. in the motor boat we visited five different sites to collect crayfish, benthic macroinvertebrates, and littoral vegetation samples. it's amazing how much I improved in crayfish catching in one day, although, the waters were calmer and clearer than yesterday. it's also pretty amazing how differently the crayfish nests act in different areas, even though we were always in the same lake. at some sites, the males would be big, fearless, and roaming out in the open. at other sites, the males would be smaller in size and more skittish. females were always pretty calm, and after lifting up a rock they usually wouldn't move. some sites contained more males, other more females. today I wore a two piece 7 mm wetsuit, booties, and gloves. the gloves made the collection slightly more difficult because they're slightly bulky, but having them made such a huge difference. Even though we didn't get a chance to scuba, i'm kind of glad we didn't because it would have been really cold without a hood. but, oh well! we'll be back in a few weeks to do more collecting.

On the way back home we stopped in Iron Town and went to Scott's Subs. I got a vegetarian (duh): lettuce, cucumber, gucamole, raspberry vinegrette, and two types of cheeses. I'm gonna try to make my own cuz it was real good.
then in the evening I was incredibly exhausted and went to bed after a long, hot shower.

oh, so in total I worked from 8am-9pm and wore a wetsuit from 830-630. kewl.