Thursday January 13, 2011
Now that we have rotary screw traps (RST) fishing several rivers in California’s Central Valley, we are catching Chinook fry on a daily basis. This one stood out because of the bulge of food in its stomach. Once chinook alevins absorb their yolk sac and emerge from the gravel they begin actively feeding on larval and adult aquatic or terrestrial insects. The fry tend to orient to the top of the water column to feed on drifting food at the surface. We use this to our advantage, since this behavior makes it easy for us to catch them using the RSTs.
Photo source: FISHBIO