Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A Day in the Life


 


A Day in th Life (of a screwtrapper)
Here it is, the much anticipated video documentation of what a screw-trapper does on a daily basis. Now, I know all you whipper-snappers out there are thinkin' to yerselves, " I wanna play with fish all day and drive boats on the river!" Well, let me tell ya it ain't just all that. There's danger involved. I tell ya, this road is frought with peril! Peril so perilous, it's perilous to mention the perilosity! I've actually seen fellas lose their minds, they just SNAPPED when subjected to these kinds of perils. anyway, enough about the perils.
So 7:00 each a.m. I gets to work, sets me lunch bucket down on me desk, checks me emails, then sets to work readying the boat.
Loaded up with sampling gear we head out of the parking lot 'round 7:30 and head for the diversion dam across town, then it's a short fast ride from the boat ramp to the traps. After about a hundred attempts to gently dock to the trap and finally ramming the hull onto the pontoon, tossing you and your lunch into the river, you hook up, hurry up, and get ready to get ready. Set up debris tubs, the sorting table, check the "cod" end of the cone for sticks and general Debrius, and ya start scoopin'. Imagine if you will, an eight foot wide 800 pound stainless steel sieve with spiraled baffles inside all powered by 10,000 cubic feet of water moving 3 feet every second. Then, my friend, you have yourself a Rotary Screw....add a 4'x4'x2' live box in the back...Trap .
Now, these things catch everything that comes down the river within their radius, sticks, logs, briars, lawn clippings, dead birds, live birds, leafy detritus, ducks, dead deer, stinky beavers..trash, treasure, and other sorts of trappings, syringes, needles, bees, bats, bok choy, you get the picture. Our job is to scoop everything out with a net, sort through it and pick out the fish. Once we get the debris sorted out from the fish, we set the fish up for a little probin'! Take a dip net full of fish, put them in the anesthetic, record their species, sex, disposition, maiden names, places of residence, intended destinations, what they had for breakfast, why their cousin Vinnie doesn't call no more, then put them in the rehab bucket, let 'em get clean, then send them for a ride down El Rio de los Sacramentos.
That's it in a nutty shell. It's good work. Keeping the fleet running, executing field work like a champ, and making sure the stock for Pepperidge Farm Goldfish stays on the ups is my day to day job. Not bad I'd say. It's got it's moments, sure, but what job don't? Enjoy the montage and soon enough, I'll have you wasting another 5 minutes of your time watching me and a wet, sandy chunk-o- furnace filter material have a staring contest.

Apologies for the Youtube link, Blogger is not loading the vids.

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