{"id":6041,"date":"2025-02-06T19:03:21","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T00:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/?p=6041"},"modified":"2025-02-07T10:48:36","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T15:48:36","slug":"a-day-on-the-water-trawling-for-science-in-doboy-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/a-day-on-the-water-trawling-for-science-in-doboy-sound\/","title":{"rendered":"A Day on the Water: Trawling for Science in Doboy Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Author: Brittany Dodge<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s nothing quite like the smell of salt air, the gentle rocking of the boat, and the thrill of pulling up a net full of mystery from the depths of an estuary. Today, we\u2019re out on the water in Doboy Sound, conducting another round of otter trawls for the\u00a0What\u2019s My Bait?<\/em>\u00a0project. With each haul, we get a snapshot of the fish and crustaceans that call these\u00a0waters home\u2014some common, some odd, and some with a face only a mother (or a marine biologist) could love. As the net comes up, we lean in, eager to see what\u2019s wriggling inside. Will it be the ever-reliable Atlantic croaker, grunting away like a tiny, annoyed fisherman? Or maybe a blue crab, claws raised like it’s ready to box? Every pull is like opening a surprise gift\u2014only smellier and sometimes a little pinchier.<\/p>\n

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Sorting through the catch, we log the usual suspects: sleek, silvery mullet, the workhorses of the estuary; spot, with their telltale black mark that looks like a misplaced thumbprint; and the occasional hogchoker, doing its best impression of a pancake. Then, there are the more bizarre finds\u2014an oyster toadfish that looks straight out of a prehistoric nightmare or a sea robin that practically walks across the deck with its strange, leg-like fins. And let\u2019s not forget the shrimp, which seem to have a sixth sense for jumping straight out of our buckets and flop on the deck. As we measure, count, and record our finds, it\u2019s clear: estuaries aren\u2019t just nurseries for marine life, they\u2019re bustling, biodiverse hotspots full of weird and wonderful creatures.<\/p>\n\n

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Author: Brittany Dodge \u00a0 There\u2019s nothing quite like the smell of salt air, the gentle rocking of the boat, and the thrill of pulling up a net full of mystery from the depths of an estuary. Today, we\u2019re out on the water in Doboy Sound, conducting another round of otter trawls for the\u00a0What\u2019s My Bait?\u00a0project. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6041"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6061,"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6041\/revisions\/6061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingsite.whatsmybait.com\/07222026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}