Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Texas
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Accessing and effectively sampling off-channel habitats considered crucial for early life stages of freshwater fishes is a difficult challenge using common ichthyoplankton survey methods, such as pushnets. We describe a new method of deploying pushnets from jet-propelled kayaks to enable sampling previously inaccessible off-channel habitats. The described rig is also functional in more open and accessible habitats, such as the main channel of rivers or reservoirs. While further evaluation is necessary to ensure results are comparable across studies, the described pushnet system offers a statistically rigorous methodology which generates replicate samples in a wide range of freshwater habitats previously inaccessible to this gear type.