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Caples Lake, day two, over 1,000 fish captured overnight, 1,100 total
by Jerry Neuburger
August 27, 2008 -- Caples Lake CA -- The rescue operation efforts changed for the better Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. The electrofishing boats became much more effective and the gill nets started producing. The volunteers and DFG personnel worked twelve hour shifts from 6pm Tuesday to 6am Wednesday, capturing fish and sorting them into pens, the browns and rainbows into one pen and the brook trout into another.
By morning over 1,000 fish had been captured. The crews arriving in the morning were treated to the task of forming a net line so that the fish could be moved from the holding pens into the transport trucks.
Once in place, the holding pens were towed to shore and the fish scooped out, passed from volunteer to volunteer and then emptied into the large tankers. The rainbows and browns were transported to Silver Lake and released, the brook trout taken to Red Lake and released.
The success of the night operations buoyed the spirits of both DFG staff and the volunteers both leaving and arriving. Stafford Lehr, the DFG field incident commander called and was able to secure three additional electrofishing boats and was attempting to contact two more. If possible, all five will be on site for the Wednesday and Thursday evening night fishing.
Of the three boats on site, one was having mechanical difficulties and had to be retired before the first night's fishing was completed. That boat has been repaired and will also be put back into service.
Because the night fishing was so successful and the day fishing so frustrating, the electrofishing boats were being retired during the day shift to reduce the wear and tear. The gill netting will continue throughout the day to allow for further evaluation as to their effectiveness.
Volunteer shifts were being adjusted to meet the demands for greater personnel at night by Chris Shutes of the California Sportfishing Alliance and DFG personnel.