This week I had the amazing opportunity to go down to Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve in Port Orford to go fishing with the ODFW Marine Reserves Biological monitoring team! Redfish Rocks was one of two Marine Reserves in Oregon to close down to fishing in January 2012, so this may sound a bit ironic. However, our fishing was catch-and-release and was purely for scientific purposes.

Fishing in Port Orford is quite the experience, because there is no marina, so all the boats must be hoisted from the water with a giant crane and then left sitting dry on the dock. In order to begin our trip we were lowered 30 feet down to the ocean. We spent most of the morning attempting to fish while the team serviced the CTDs. I will forever remember what a CTD is from answering the acronym wrong on an Oceanography test, but basically it is a device that measures salinity, temperature, depth, and this particular one was also equipped with fluorometer to measure chlorophyll content. There are two CTDs in this area, one inside the reserve and outside the reserve. These CTDs are unique in the fact that they are bolted to the bottom of the ocean (usually they are dragged behind a boat). In order to bring up the CTDs to extract the data, we had to have a diver go down and unbolt them from the bottom of the ocean. Unfortunately I wasn’t really able to help much with this part of the trip, because I was overly optimistic and didn’t take enough dramamine which unfortunately resulted in a bad case of seasickness and lost breakfast :(

Luckily I was able to rally in time for fishing. The purpose of our fishing trip was to gather some data about the biomass of fish in the reserve and outside of the reserve so to add to the collection that they have already started. This data can then be compared with fish biomass numbers five or ten years down the road to see what kind of an effect the reserve is having on the fish. Each fisher also wore a stopwatch to track total fishing time in so that catch per unit of effort can be calculated as well. We were definitely in a prime fishing location, because on several occaisions I would barely have my line in the water for a minute before I would reel in another fish. My favorite part was watching all the different types of species that came up; Black Rockfish, Blue Rockfish, Yellowtail Rockfish, Canary Rockfish, and Ling Cod. I was pretty proud of the fact that I caught 11 fish including a gorgeous 51cm Canary Rockfish. However, My catch piddled in comparison to the captain who kept bringing in 12 pound Ling Cod.  Although I enjoy my social science, it was pretty awesome be out in the field with biological scientists and I consider myself very lucky for having the opportunity!

I had a reality check when I returned to my job as normal in Lincoln City. I finally had the inevitable rough interview with a fisherman in the Salmon River area. Although I had been warned that these fishermen are adamantly against marine reserves, I truly believed it when in the middle of an interview one of them told me that I could take my marine reserve and shove it. It didn’t take long for my frustration with this interview to turn into amusement and I built my nerve back up to talk to another one. The next one was upset as well, and he described marine reserves as a type of conspiracy theory, I quote, “See this is what happens when people go to school and read too many books.” I had to laugh at this one. Props to the fishermen for of the Salmon River for  helping me to develop a thicker skin this summer.