First shift as a herring monitor

Today, I did my first shift as a herring monitor at the Mystic dam. The idea is to count fish heading up river, from the Lower Mystic Lake to the Upper Mystic Lake, to get a sense for the revival of the fish stock.

I sat for 10 minutes counting fish at the top of the fish ladder. How many fish came through? Exactly zero. Zilch. Nada. Nil. Because it was my first shift, I thought I might be doing something wrong. But I checked the logs and the two shifts before me also counted exactly zero fish coming up the ladder. Not a good day for herring, probably because it was cold and rainy.

Below is a shot of the viewing platform. It’s not my photo, but rather one that was posted to a our Mystic Lakes Herring Monitors Facebook group, and it’s not from today. Hopefully, I’ll some photos of my own in future posts.