Bob

Bob is adopted by the Hamilton-Wenham Rod and Gun Club. Members of this club assisted in both 2006 and 2007 to help us capture fish at the Nemasket River for stocking, and some also volunteered their time to help us trap downstream migrating juveniles. Bob was captured in the Ipswich Mills Dam box trap and tagged on April 27, 2007, and then he was then transported upstream to the stocking release site in Topsfield in a 100 gallon stock tank. At Topsfield, we "stocked" Bob back to his natal river.

Bob was last seen by the stationary receiver at Site 7 outside of the Great Wenham Swamp on May 10, 2007 at 4:06 am. We found Bob's tag tangled on the grasses just upstream of Site 7 on May 15! What could have happened?

April 27: Bob was captured from the box trap near Site 2 (Ipswich Mills Dam). After being tagged, we drove Bob in a 100 gallon stock tank to the Salem Road bridge in Topsfield. We stocked Bob and other Ipswich native fish to the Ipswich River at this upstream site.

April 28, 7:00 am: Bob spends his first night out of range of the receivers, but arrives early in the morning to Site 8 in the Great Wenham Swamp.

April 28, 8:45 pm: Bob spends the day going in and out of range of the receiver at Site 8, and when evening falls he moves on...where to?

May 9, 2:10 pm: After a few days out of range of any receiver, including our manual receiver, we hear Bob as he swims near the stationary antenna at Site 7. He sticks around briefly, then dissapears for three hours. He then spends the night in range of the receiver.

May 10, 4:06 am: Bob is last heard on the stationary receiver at Site 7 early in the morning. We pick up his signal later that day during manual tracking.

May 11, 12:46 pm: During manual tracking, we hear signals from Bob's transmitter, just upstream of the Site 7 antenna.

May 12, 5:14 pm: We again hear Bob, in the same spot, as we manually search for tagged fish.

May 13, 11:49 am: We hear Bob again as we manually track, and it seems he isn't moving much. We poke around the area in our kayaks and find a back water pool adjacent to the main stem, and wonder if he found his way into it.

May 14, 4:09 pm: We anticipate hearing Bob's signal as we get closer to Site 7, and he hear him in the same area again! We make adjustments to the antenna to more precisely locate Bob, and it sounds as though his signal is coming from dry land.

May 15, 1:30 pm: We discover Bob's transmitter, but no sign of Bob, in the long grasses emerging from the river. The antenna of the transmitter is bent twice, but not in areas we would have kinked it during tagging. We can only assume what happened to Bob the fish...When he was stocked, water levels were high enough that he may have swum over the grasses, where his transmitter's antenna could have become entangled and he lost it. Alternatively, he may have just regurgitated the tag if it was not securely implanted. Though we did not find remains of Bob (no bones, bird pellets, scales, or otherwise), my guess is that he was not a victim of predation, although we can't entirely rule that out as a possibility! My hope is that he continued onward, to wherever he wanted, though now untagged. Contact us if you have additional theories about Bob's fate!