Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

We went fish shocking at Sac and Fox Trail in Marion, Iowa to do a population count. We cleaned up the creek as we went along and gathered about 13.5 hectares of garbage. We did this everyday, Monday through Thursday, for 9 weeks. We cleaned up many creeks including, Dry Creek, Indian Creek, and Sac and Fox. We walked about a mile down the winding creek while the man from the Iowa Hygenics Lab was there with a fish shocking device that paralyzed, not killed, the fish so we could count the amounts of red horse, suckers, bluegill, and carp. There were a lot of red horse and they were also producing eggs at the time so we had to be very careful when reviving them. To revive a fish after it has been shocked you have to hold it between your hands and swoosh it through the water in a swimming motion until its nerves are normal again, and then it will swim off and be perfectly fine.
This was very fun and very challenging but we learned a lot about where the fish are in the water, where they hide, how many there actually underneath you that you cannot see, and what they look like. We learned many kinds of fish that we never knew were in the creek and we caught a lot of minnows as well. By doing this it helped us learn about the condition of the creek. There was an abundant amount of fish, therefore, the creek must be doing well. The nitrate and nitrite were at safe levels and the dissolved oxygen levels were great as well.
We learned a lot fish shocking and cleaned up a good portion of the trail and creek. It's amazing what you find when you walk through and actually look.