In Search of Monster Fish: Angling for a More Sustainable Planet, Book Review by Don Orth

Mark Spitzer’s latest book, In Search for Monster Fish: Angling for a More Sustainable Planet, will appeal to all types of anglers and adventurers. Mark Spitzer is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Central Arkansas and author of over twenty-five books.  His previous forays into fish writing include three non-fiction books: Season of the Gar: Adventures in Pursuit of America’s Most Misunderstood Fish (2010, Return of the Gar (2015), and Beautifully Grotesque Fish of the American West (2017).  He has also written fishy fiction, e.g., Garapaima: A Monster Fish Novel (2015).     

In Search of Monster Fish is a series of stories in which Spitzer seeks out a new monster fish.   Although he doesn’t formally define “monster” fish, it is apparent that size matters and big teeth add to the mystique. The term was popularized by National Geographic’s Monster Fish show.  But there are so many monster-fish stories to tell, we cannot get enough. The author’s purpose goes beyond showing off his fishing skills.  It’s more about the search. 

Book cover of In Search of Monster Fish shows Mark Spitzer with a Doitsu variety koi carp. 

Fishing is often a never-ending series of quests. Many serious observers have identified 5 stages of an angler’s life, stated simply as Any Fish, Many Fish, Big Fish, No Fish, and finally Give Back Fish (McKenna 2013).  Each monster fish was something new for Spitzer to pursue.  Each quest required new skills and a new place. Every story contains some daily conversation with himself about why he's here. He asks "What was I put here to do?"  This is a deep and difficult philosophical question to pose in a book entitled In Search of Monster Fish. It is those daily conversations that make this book most interesting.  In the first chapter, “Demythologizing Demonologies,” we join Spitzer, guide Wilson, and Lea the fun-loving poetry professor, in the Amazon in pursuit of monster fish myths. Their first fish, which the guide called dormelinas, was captured by swinging a machete. He begins the conversation about the monster fish mystique as they learn to catch and eat local fish (piranha fritta) from their guide. 
  

In “Catfishalonia,” Spitzer seeks to catch a Wels Catfish, Siluro or Silurus glanis.  This is the biggest freshwater catfish which can exceed 200 pounds and 7 feet. It is an opportunistic catfish and in the Ebro River it’s referred to as "The Ebro Monster.”  Like other catfish, it feeds at night on fish, ducks, voles, and the misplaced American red crayfish (Procambarus clarkii).   In 1974, a German fisheries biologist named Roland Lorkowsky introduced young Wels Catfish to the Ebro River to create a recreational fishery. The Ebro is no pristine river; rather, it’s a working river with hydroelectric dams, nuclear plants, chemical plants, orchards, and animal agriculture. By the late 1980s, anglers were boasting of catches of catfish over 90 pounds, which led to guiding industry for tourist anglers. While I was reading this book, a British angler caught an 8-foot albino catfish that weighed 194 pounds. Spitzer does not exaggerate about monster fish. Watch Spitzer vs Wels Catfish to see the outcome.
   

In “Cuda Chaos in the Dominican Republic,” Spitzer and his now fiancée are beaten by ocean waves in search of barracuda, in particular small ones because the largest Barracuda have toxic levels of the ciguatoxin. Nothing prepares one for rough waters, but Lea and Mark eventually catch and eat Barracuda in a Cuda creole. In “Sportfishing Gar,” Spitzer explores his local fishing water, Lake Conway, which contains three species of gar. Spitzer is experienced catching them with jug lines and trot lines, but this adventure represents his very first efforts at catching gar with a rope lure.  See Doug Jeffries YouTube video for instruction on making a rope lure.  After initial success, his next trial is to catch a gar on a fly.   But this quest becomes a lesson in learning to fly cast like an experienced fly fisher—not a goal for amateur.

Mark Spitzer with Alligator Gar.  (c) Mark Spitzer

After a honeymoon in Borneo, he is jet-lagged while “Monster-fishing shark off Montauk,” the eastern end of the Long Island peninsula in New York.  He solicits the help of Captain John Krol aboard the Let’s Go Fishin. Captain John has been fishing these waters since the 1980s.  Montauk is the site of an annual shark tournament with big money prizes and donation of shark meat to food pantries. Spitzer opens a brand new bucket of chum, and raises questions about shark hunting. Captain Krol tells him “it used to be all about tuna out here, but when the tuna thinned due to the mushrooming markets, something else had to take its place.  Shark then became the thing.” According to the experienced Krol, everything is down compared to the past.  Before tuna were completed fished out, “there was only shark hunter in these waters...Frank Mundus. After trying to kill everything in the ocean, he became a conservationist…then tried to save everything in it.”   True, “Monster Man” Mundus is well-known in the region and was the inspiration for the character Quint in the book and movie, Jaws. 
     

After a Great White Shark terrorized a New England town in the movie, Jaws,  the interest in shark fishing grew and shark tournaments incentivized shark harvest.  Shark are extremely vulnerable to overfishing due to low reproductive output, high extinction risk, and intrinsic vulnerabilities to overexploitation.  Recreational fishing for sharks is a global management concern (Babcock 2009; Shiffman 2014; Gallagher et al. 2017).  Frank Mundus was responsible for calling shark fishing “monster fishing,” which gained notoriety when he harpoon-captured a massive white shark off Montauk that he estimated at ~2000 kg in 1964 (4500 pounds) (Mundus and Wisner 1971). It’s true that Mundus became a shark hunter turned conservationist.  He was promoted circle hooks, initiated a shark tagging program, and advocated for catch and release. Today there is a one shark per day limit with 54-inch minimum regulation. 
  

Shark hunting is very controversial, and Spitzer gets his facts straight.  Worm et al. (2013) estimated that the total number of sharks killed by fisheries each year is between 63 and 273 million, with an average of approximately 100 million. The problem is overfishing and as Spitzer writes “monster fish have a lot to teach us, but to learn from them we need to keep them around.” While chumming for sharks, he observes large fishing trawlers and reflects on his fishing quests for monster fish.   Spitzer writes “…I was heading in the right direction, but if this monster-fish thing is really more than just an excuse for me to go fishing, then I need to look even harder. Way harder!” 
 

In Monster carp in France, Spitzer tries a week of extreme carp angling.  Carp know no borders and the Itkus fishing lake is designed to make carp anglers respect their borders.  Each section of the fishing lake is called a ‘swim’ and anglers reserve their swims. If you get skunked in your assigned swim, no wandering to other areas of the lake is permitted.  Spitzer must admit his ignorance in order to catch a monster carp. Specialized carp rigs include hair rigs, boilies, long carp rods, and pop-up rod alarms. These are extreme carp anglers who drive and survive during a long week of carp angling. Fish are caught, photographed, and released to bite again—but only after the extreme angler applies first-aid cream to damaged carp lips.  Anything that helps reduce the ingress of bacteria into open wounds is likely to benefit the carp.  However, this technique has not been transferred to North America.  Carp are a learned preference for monster fishing.  Clearly, in managed waters they can reach monster sizes, as long as one practices catch and release.  Mirror carp, a genetic mutation with scattered scales covering only part of the body, were a target here. Spitzer was skunked on some days, but did land the Doitsu variety Koi which is pictured on the book's cover. It remains a great paradox that carp are such a highly desired species in some places while reviled for its dominance and damages in lake ecosystems in other places. 
    

“Bananas from Tarpon” is Switzer’s quest to catch tarpon and supersize stingrays in Gambia.  With his “boss lady” Lea, his guides Farmara, Junior, and Fabu, he eats his first stingray, complete with gelatinous skin and cartilage.  Although he was thrilled to catch a “large” tarpon, it was barely large enough to qualify as an adult specimen.  His conversation gets back to his development as an angler and what he can put back. Food security in Gambia depends on catching and keeping fish.  The old saw “Game fish are too valuable to only by caught once” really doesn’t make sense here. Humans are a species that looks out for itself first. His thinking is turning as he travels to Senegal with thoughts of monster billfishes, Zane Grey, and Ernest Hemingway.  Here near the heart of the world’s richest fishing areas, the local fishers were harvesting Skipjack Tuna Katsuwonus pelamis with handlines from small boats, called pirogues.  But larger vessels and foreign trawlers are threatening the livelihoods of Senegalese artisinal fishers. Spitzer casted for small tuna and used them as bait for his pursuit of billfishes including the Blue Marlin Makaira nigricans, a species threatened by overfishing.  Before long, he switches his target to the Dorado, or Mahi Mahi Coryphaena hippurus, and he reflects again on putting back.

In the “Italian Zander” the conversation continues with twenty ways to put back more. His interest in Monster Zander peaked after a story of monster fish terrorizing swimmers in a Swiss lake. It’s very unusual for Zander Sander lucioperca to attack humans, but the strange story initiated his quest. The Zander is closely related to the Walleye Sander vitreus. In fact the world record Zander at 25.3 pounds, is only slightly larger than the world record Walleye at 22.7 pounds, from Greer’s Ferry Lake in Arkansas. With his guide, Fabrizio, he fishes Lake Como in northern Italy.  This natural lake has a fish fauna that is altered by widespread stocking of non-native fishes (Volta et al. 2018).  After catching a Zander, European chub, European Perch, Northern Pike, and a North American favorite—a Largemouth Bass, he returns to the conversation before traveling to the boot heel of Italy to pursue Conger Eel.   You see there is a myth about a 130 pound Conger Eel landed off the coast of Devon. The European Conger Conger conger reaches a maximum size of 3 meters though more typical big ones are 1.5 m. I suspect this trip was more about the seafood. His guide, Antonio, had a mis-shapened finger from a Moray Eel encounter and spoke only Italian.  The longline they fished encountered several species, including some Conger, but mostly the longline caught immature fish.  While his reward was buona murena fritta, the reminder of overfishing immature fish troubled him.

The concluding chapter is “Solutions for  Disenlightenment” where Spitzer finishes his conversation about giving back.  Without giving away the ending, he examines why monster fish are so sacred to him.  What is a man without monster fish?  What are reasonable solutions?  We need scientists and discovery and more types of FishLove.  No single, simple answer exists “to sustain the terrifying beauty of this mind boggling, mind blowing, and mind altering monster fish world.” (Spitzer 2019, p. 180).  I recommend that you join Mark Spitzer on his expeditions in this fun- and monster-filled book and plan your next fishing quest.

References

Babcock, E.A. 2009. Recreational fishing for pelagic sharks worldwide.   Pages 193-204 in I.-M.D. Camhi, E.K. Pikitch, and E.A. Babcock, editors. Sharks of the open ocean: Biology, fisheries, and conservation.  Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.

Gallagher, A.J., N. Hammerschlag, A.J. Danylchuk, and S.J. Cooke. 2017 Shark recreational fisheries: Status, challenges, and research needs. Ambio 46(4):385-398. doi: 10.1007/s13280-016-0856-8

McKenna, M. 2013.  Five stages of a fisherman’s life.  Sun Valley Magazine   March 18, 2013.  Accessed 7 February 2019 from https://sunvalleymag.com/five-stages-of-a-fishermans-life/

Mundus, F., and W.L. Wisner.  1971. Sportfishing for sharks. Collier Books, New York.

Shiffman, D.S. 2014. More large sharks were killed by recreational anglers than commercial fishermen in the US last year. Retrieved November 3, 2019. Available: www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=17834.

Spitzer, M. 2019. In Search of Monster Fish: Angling for a More Sustainable Planet. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska. 189 pp

Volta, P., E. Jeppesen, P. Sala, S. Galafassi, C. Foglini, C. Puzzi, and I.J. Winfield. 2018.  Fish assemblages in deep Italian subalpine lakes: history and present status with emphasis on non-native species.  Hydrobiologia 824:255-270    Worm, B., B. Davis, L. Kettemer, C. Ward-Paige, D. Chapman, M. Heithaus, S. Kessel, and S. Gruber.  2013. Global catches, exploitation rates, and rebuilding options for sharks. Marine Policy 40: 194-204.

Carp Personality, by Hanna Moreland

In a study conducted by Klefoth et al. (2012) questioned whether boldness of specific carp increased capture rate through hook and line fishing.  They are not the only investigators studying personality in fish.  In this essay I explore three questions. What is boldness in carp?  How do we measure it? What are the implications of this research?  I will explore these questions in the context of the Klefoth et al. study in order to give a better understanding of why this research is so important.

Common Carp Cyprinus carpio.  Photo from Flickr.  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Science would be easier if we could just ask animals their personality traits through a short quiz or verbal interaction. How can a carp have a personality? One way to measure personality in carp is to identify if the individual is bold or not bold. In this study carp boldness was measured by tracking fish movements within a small pond with transmitters. In the pond there were shelters the researchers placed which the carp used for safety. Some carp spent their time mostly in the shelter, some spent some time right outside the shelters, and others ventured far from the shelter. Those individuals who ventured far from the shelter site were considered bold and marked as so for later testing. Do these individuals have a higher production of a hormone or a genetic sequence that makes them more likely to be bold?  Klefoth et al. (2017) indicates that there is a genetic component to being bold as boldness was a repeatable measurement in this experiment as well as in other experiments studying fish.

Next, I’m going to explore why measuring boldness matters in the context of this article as well as in relation to angling. Klefoth et al. (2012) asked whether boldness and catchability were correlated. They hypothesized that the bold individuals, those who ventured far from the shelters in the pond, would be more likely to be caught by anglers because they were in open waters. The research indicates that a correlation exists! Those individuals marked as bold in the first part of the study, were the carp more likely to be caught in the second half of the study. This has great implications for management strategies in both threatened species and species intended for harvest. If boldness is truly genetic and moderately heritable these traits can be selected and bred for. In relation to threatened species, individuals who stay in the shelters would be most useful for breeding purposes because they are more cautious and less vulnerable to predation. On the other hand, for game fish purposes the bold fish would be the focus of breeding and stocking programs. In this study bolder fish were more likely to be caught which means happier anglers if bold fish are stocked in popular carp fishing ponds!

 

Carp breaching.  Photo by Stan Lupo.  CC BY-NC-NC 2.0.  Source.

Of course, there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered before breeding programs can be initiated. Further research can delve into what makes a carp bold, whether it be genetic or hormone related. Next studies could focus on if boldness is heritable from parent to offspring and by what magnitude as traits like length and size are only moderately heritable in fish (Garcia et al. 2007). If these continued research efforts yield positive results this could mean new management techniques that improve populations of threatened and game carp species. Finally, similar research could be conducted on other species of fish to see if the same results hold true and can be applied to their own management programs. Fish may not be as different from humans with regards to personality. This new finding opens new windows of opportunity for bold students willing to explore these implications through further research and management.

References

Garcia de Leaniz, C., and fourteen coauthors. (2007). A critical review of adaptive genetic variation in Atlantic salmon: Implications for conservation. Biological Reviews, 82, 173– 211.

Klefoth, T., Skov, C., Kuparinen, A., & Arlinghaus, R. (2017). Toward a mechanistic understanding of vulnerability to line fishing: Boldness as the basic target of angling‐induced selection. Evolutionary Applications, 10, 994– 1006.

Klefoth, T., Skov, C., Krause, J., & Arlinghaus, R. (2012). The role of ecological context and predation risk‐stimuli in revealing the true picture about the genetic basis of boldness evolution in fish. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 66, 547– 559. 

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Bowfishing for "Rough" Fish, by Don Orth

Only a small fraction of our fishes are sport fish (or game fish).  Yet these game fish require a very large part of the modern fisheries agency’s time and talent. In Virginia,  "game fish" means trout (including all Salmonidae), all of the sunfish family (including largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and spotted bass, rock bass, bream, bluegill and crappie), walleye or pike perch, white bass, chain pickerel or jackfish, muskellunge, and northern pike, wherever such fish are found in the waters of this Commonwealth and rockfish or striped bass where found above tidewaters or in streams which are blocked from access from tidewaters by dams." VA Code § 29.1-100 (2014)    Recreational fisheries are managed with many strategies, including creel limits, seasons, size regulations, stocking, restrictive use of baitfish, and limitations on competitive fishing tournaments.  However, what about all the other fishes? To use the terms “nongame” or "aquatic wildlife" is nondescript, and “rough” fish has negative connotations.    What we call the others is as important as how we manage them. Bowfishing for large non-traditional “rough” fish is a growing activity that raises important challenges. Not the least of which is what to call these fish.

Fishing license sales and fishing participation are not growing  and declines in ifishing are a threat to the future of freshwater fishing and fish conservation. Activities such as fish stocking are important, however, stocking alone does not necessarily lead to increases in participation.   Angler motivations have been well studied and they revolve around catching something (anything), catching big fish, catching many fish, and keeping fish.   These motivations have so shaped agencies, that they have shown little imagination for facilitating other fish-related activities, such as snorkeling, fish watching, and native fish keeping.   

Bowfishing at dusk.  Photo from Indian Head Ranch.

In 100 Weird Ways to Catch Fish, Waldman (2005) described bowfishing as “a blood sport, a shoot-and-release is not an option, at least not legally or morally.” Bowfishing is practiced in many regions of the world to harvest fish for food.  In North America, it is legal in many states and common carp is a frequent target.  Many other large fish are targeted by bowfishers and the sport is growing. In 2005 Bowfishing Association of America (BAA) had only 500 members (Waldman 2005), but today BAA has around 4,000 members (Jason Emmelm, What is Bowfishing).    Bowfishing may never reach the popularity of trout fishing or black bass fishing.  However, numerous guides may be found to help the novice to enjoy this new sport.  

Hae Kim with Virginia state record common carp, 45 pounds, 7 ounces. Photo by Jason Emmel.

Bowfishing has grown as more states support recognition of trophy fish captured by this method.   Associations sponsor local tournaments to provide further validation to the skilled archer.  Each year new bowfishing records are set and more bowfishers enter the sport.  In March 22, 2017 a 258 pound, 7 feet 11 inch Alligator Gar set a new bowfishing record at Toledo Bend Reservoir.  In January, 2017, Tom Sheram shot a 81.3 pound Smallmouth Buffalo fish in Lake Athens, Texas.  Jerrime Tucker caught the biggest Spotted Gar with bowfishing in Arkansas, a 41.3 inches 12 pounds 5 oz.   Bowfisherman Robb Kemper shattered the previous Illinois state record bighead Asian carp with a 59 lb. 4 oz fish caught in Illinois in 2011. 

Winning TKO team at the 2016 US Open Bowfishing tournament.

Two trends, tournaments and invasive fish, suggest that growth in bowfishing is likely to continue. From small regional tournaments (e.g., Gar Bananza), the sport of bowfishing has expanded to national events such as the US Open Bowfishing Championship  (See album here). At the 2016 championship, held in Memphis, Tennessee, the first place team took 1,001.4 pounds, while second place was 963.20 pounds of “rough” fish. Most states allow bowfishing but each state has different restrictions for locations, time of day, and species that may be taken via bowfishing.  In most cases, the restrictions are developed to allow harvest of underutilized fish species while protecting other fishes.  Tournament bowfishers in Arkansas harvested 3.8 fish per hour, most of which were carp and gars (Quinn 2010).   Tournament rules often do not allow harvest of catfishes.

Robb Kemper with a 59 pound, 4 ounce Bighead Carp.  Source

Quinn (2010) and others suggested that bowfishing tournaments may help reduce abundant non-native common and Asian carps.   Consequently, bowfishing has been promoted as one approach to facilitate carp removal.    Many state agencies are grappling with policy implications of the growing interest in bowfishing.  Regulations will have to change and adapt to changing conditions.   For example, in Delaware it is now lawful to take invasive fish with bow and arrow.   Until recently, Maryland permitted the take of Cownose Ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) with bowfishing until concerns about cownose rays annihilating oysters was de-bunked.  In the Midwest, where Asian carps are increasing in abundance and distribution, bowfishing is the most effective selective capture technique (Conover et al. 2007).  It is often the only way to collect unwanted grass carp (Morrow et al. 1997). In the Potomac River, bowfishing is a very effective technique for taking the Northern Snakehead because this air breathing fish is often very near the water surface.

Rough fish (or the slang trash fish) is a term used in the U.S to describe fish that are less desirable to sport anglers.  Harriet Carlander, in History of Fish and Fishing, explained that the term "rough" was a term used for lower valued fish that had only been partly processed during a busy day of fishing.  These fish could not be sold for full price. In northern Europe the term is coarse fish. Today, the term persists but many types of  rough fish (roughfish.com) are pursued by anglers interested in capturing the wide variety of species that exist in US waters.  The negative connotations of the term “rough” fish are unfortunate and the term must be abandoned. Putting Buffalo fish, carp, and gar in the same category for management makes no sense.

T shirt marketed by roughfish.com laments "so many species, so little time."

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet." These rough fish have values and the terms we use should reflect that value. For example, the common carp and the four Asian carps all have demonstrated a high probability of causing ecological and economic effects where populations become established (Conover et al. 2007).  Regulations on bowfishing should be liberal to encourage the take of these species rather they are turned into food or fertilizer.  Bowfishing tournaments have partnered with organic fertilizer companies to utilize the harvest.   Carpbusters Inc., a non-profit, created the EcoCarp® project that take carp and make nutritious, affordable food for zoos, sanctuaries, and other applications.

The 2016 US Open bowfishing tournament partnered with SF Organics to create healthy organic fertilizer products.

The growing group of bowfishers have not been well studied.  One target, the gars (Lepisosteide) are also very understudied and susceptible to overfishing.  States badly need to estimate bowfishing effort and population characteristics of gars in order to develop fair, protective, and rational bowfishing regulations.   Typically, creel surveys do not encounter night-time bowfishers.  One survey of Texas bowfishers indicated that the bowfishers were younger than traditional anglers (Bennett et al. 2015).  Bowfishers are a new and dedicated constituency with spe­cialized boats and equipment. US agencies must adapt to this new user group and study these anglers and their targets. New regulations may be needed to influence the emerging bowfishers. Regulations have the potential to influence participation and fishing license sales.  Bowfishing may not solve the invasive fish problems, but bowfishers can participate in their sport while removing unwanted fish.   The specialized bowfishers have a stake in freshwater conservation and we need to provide a name for the fish that are bowfished.

Specialized bowfishing gear and boats are used, such as the bowfishing equipped airboat.  Photo by William Sikes

References

Bennett, D.L., R.A. Ott, and C.C. Bonds.  2014.  Surveys of Texas bow anglers, with implications for managing Alligator Gar. Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies 2:8-14.

Conover, G., R. Simmonds, and M. Whalen, editors. 2007. Management and control plan for bighead, black, grass, and silver carps in the United States. Asian Carp Working Group, Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force, Washington, D. C. Available: http://www.asiancarp.org/Documents/Carps_Management_Plan.pdf.  Accessed May 30, 2017. 

Morrow, J.V., Jr, J. P. Kirk, and J. Killgore. 1997. Collection, age, growth, and population attributes of triploid Grass Carp stocked into the Santee-Cooper Reservoirs, South Carolina. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 17: 38-43.  

Quinn, J.W. 2010. A survey of bowfishing tournaments in Arkansas. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 30: 1376-1384.  

Waldman, J. 2005. 100 weird ways to catch fish.  Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

Fluvial Fishes Lab 2016

What mattered in 2016? Did we get published? Did it get read? Did it get cited? Did it make any difference? Can we make the next paper even better?   The research cycle continues as we celebrate the end of 2016.  

It never fails.  Whenever a submitted, revised, and revised and revised manuscript is finally acceptable for publication in a journal, I feel vindicated.  Sometimes I will spontaneously begin singing Queen's "We are the champions.  The process of research certainly feels like a "Hero's journey" to the authors.  There are no easy publications.  Each is a long struggle that ends in organizing a manuscript into the standard IMRAD template. This template has been used forever, but it  devalues the real process and excitement of discovery.   

In 2016, the Fluvial Fishes Lab completed papers and projects and we worked more on delivering and tailoring the message to other members of the public, hoping to make the science matter. All lab members are enthusiastic about explaining their work to members of the public.  Two noteworthy books I read this past year were Randy Olson's Houston, We Have a Narrative (Univ. Chicago Press, 2015) and Nancy Baron’s Escape from the Ivory Tower: A Guide to Making Your Science Matter  (Island Press, 2010).  Each provides many practical suggestions for making connections with the public.

In 2016,  Gary Grossman,   Jason Neuswanger, and I published  “Innovative Approaches to Fisheries Education and Outreach in Fisheries.” It was an interesting collaboration, as we reflected on changes in college teaching over the past decades.   In 1995, I published an article in Fisheries entitled “Pogo Was Right, Let’s Change the Way We Teach Fisheries.”  Twenty years later we wrote,  "Despite the prescience of Orth’s (1995) article, many of the same problems remain in Fisheries education today."  This has to be the first time my name and “prescience” has been used in the same sentence.    If interested, you can read about the use of the use of music, ukulele, karaoke, ePortfolio, troutnut, and other contemporary approaches in education.  We remain hopeful that further pedagogical innovation will result in fisheries having a “signature pedagogy.”

In a paper on species distribution models (SDMs) of New River fishes, Jian Huang, Emmanual Frimpong and I examined the temporal transferability of these SDMs in terms of discrimination power and calibration with the temporarily independent datasets.   We used lasso-regularized logistic regression (LLR), boosted regression trees (BRT), MaxEnt, and ensemble models (ENS) to evaluate the habitat suitability of 16 fish species.  Climate change is the most influential disturbance on fishes and these types of models will be more commonly employed to project future changes in species distributions.  However, biases, under-fitting, and overfitting were common issues to address in temporal transferability.  

Our analysis of catfish feeding before, during, and after the spring migration of Alosine fishes is in press in Marine and Coastal Fisheries.  The study depended on methods for identifying partially digested unidentifiable fish (PDUF) with DNA barcodes.    The paper was the first to examine which species of Alosa occurred in guts of Flathead Catfish and Flathead Catfish. In this time frame, the Blue Catfish had broad, omnivorous diets, while Flathead Catfish fed solely on other fish. However, there were important spatial and temporal differences in diets.  Alosa species were consumed at higher frequency in the non-tidal, freshwater areas  than in oligohaline and mesohaline sites. Flathead Catfish are likely to have a greater per-fish impact on depleted Alosa species than the Blue Catfish. Further, dams and complex river structures appear to increase the vulnerability of alosines to predation by large catfishes.  We are now completely done with sampling catfish stomachs and busy with the analysis of data.    

Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus source

An opportunistic encounter with Clinch Dace during a spawning event eventually was accepted as a Note on spawning behavior  by Hunter Hatcher et al. (in press, The American Midland Naturalist) after many hours watching videos and interpreting behaviors, waiting for a brief release of gametes. 

Rock Bass recruitment in the New River has never been examined previously.  Pearce Cooper examined historic data sets and aged Rock Bass in the New River to examine major drivers of recruitment variation.   At two locations downstream from Claytor Lake Dam, high streamflow events after spawning reduced recruitment of Rock Bass at age-1.  The paper is available here. 

The relationship between average and maximum discharge (cm/s) in the previous year and the catch per unit effort (CPUE, # fish/h) of age-1 Rock Bass at the upstream and downstream sites during the months the relationship was found to be significant.

Michael Moore defended his Masters Thesis on the yeller finned minners in spring and began a PhD program at University of Missouri.  He'll move up from studying small, fragmented populations of a small minnow to studying small, fragmented populations of large sturgeon.  The final report to the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries,  “Distribution and Population Characterizationof Clinch Dace (Chrosomus sp. cf. saylori) in the Upper Clinch River System, Virginia” provides a plan for conserving remaining populations.
 
Objectives of this project were to (1) examine the historical changes in these watersheds to quantify features of historical Clinch dace streams; (2) confirm presence and relatedness of within-stream subpopulations separated by putative barriers; (3) identify and verify presence/absence of Clinch dace in the 125 km not previously sampled; (4) survey for spread in distribution of other Chrosomus in putative range of Clinch dace; (5) develop outreach plan landowners to protect extant populations. Clinch Dace occur at low densities in approximately 31.5 km of headwater streams. The mean estimate of global population size was 6,706 individuals. Most populations are likely influenced by low genetic diversity. Therefore, we examined 15 candidate conservation areas; ten of these areas have abandoned mine sites with $12.5M in unfunded restoration costs. The best candidate areas for conservation of Clinch Dace are: Pine Creek, Big Lick Creek, Mudlick Creek, and Hurricane Fork.

This is me after Bells Palsy paralyzed my facial nerves. Muscles on the right side of my face would not move.

In June I experienced sudden paralysis of the facial muscles on my right side. Paralysis of the facial nerve was caused by virus and inflammation and treated with antiviral and anti inflammatory medications.  The original prognosis that voluntary movement would gradually return in 3 to 6 months proved correct.  The facial nerve, or cranial nerve VII, is the nerve of facial expression. It is composed of approximately 10,000 neurons, 7,000 of which are myelinated and innervate the nerves of facial expression. That explains the slow regeneration time.

In September, I created and delivered my first Pecha Kucha presentation for Blacksburg Sustainability Week.  This concise format requires 20 slides of 20 seconds each, and makes it impossible to be spontaneous.   View it here.

Two new studies were funded in 2016.  One is a biological survey of the New River in the vicinity of the Fries Hydroelectic project; this is a collaboration with Verl Emrick and Caitlyn Carey, of the Conservation Management Institute. 

Google Earth photo of New River above Fries Dam. Note the mid-channel island built from the trapped river sediments.

The other new study, with Eric Hallerman, will examine genetic divergence in small populations of the Clinch Dace. This study will be led by Rebecca Bourquin, who left a position at Maryland Biological Stream Survey to begin her graduate studies last fall. 
 
The Virginia Tech Ichthyology blog had 54 posts for 2016.   The most viewed blogpost of the year was "Dammed If You Do:  Adopting Social Media in Teaching."   At the American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting in Kansas City, I was awarded the Excellence in Fisheries Education Award and named American Fisheries Society Fellow. 
 

Awarded the Excellence in Fisheries Education Award.  With Ron Essig and Jesse Trushenksi at the American Fisheries Society Meeting

Hunter Hatcher graduated in spring and sampled the New River near Fries Dam before beginning his Masters studies at Mississippi State University. 

Hunter Hatcher gets photographed at the Mudbass Classic 2016.

Hae Kim broke his own archery record with a record carp that was 45 lbs. and 7 oz.  It was taken in  Claytor Lake.

Hae Kim with his record carp.   Source.

Research on the non-native catfish is chronicled regularly in a blog, managed by PhD student, Joseph Schmitt.  You can read about our work at http://www.chesapeakecatfish.com/.
 

Recognition at 2016 Service Dinner