On a beautiful, cold day, we got on our gear and ice-skated
on the smooth ice of Blackfish Pond where we caught a blackfish and kept it as
a weather fish and a school pet.
We made
two awesome cone-shaped traps out of pointy fence wire during our free
time. When we were finished making the
traps, we chipped holes in the ice of two different ponds with a heavy ice-pick
and set the traps in the holes. The
first two boring times we checked the traps they were empty. On the day we went ice-skating, the hole was
covered with a cloudy, thin layer of ice.
Aiden happily chipped the ice away and Kaleb carefully took the ice chunks
out. Standing around the hole, we saw a
big blackfish swimming around in our trap.
He was about six inches long. Aiden
lay on the ice, rolled up his sleeve and stuck his arm in the freezing water to
reach the trap. (He said it wasn’t cold.)
We had to chip some more ice away before we finally got the trap out.
As we gasped with excitement, Mr. Gooden put it
in a tote of swampy pond water and we brought it to the school as a class
pet. The blackfish has leopard-like skin
that is black and greenish, like it’s wearing an army uniform. The adults and Elders told us that blackfish
can predict the weather. If the
blackfish swims at the top of the tank, the weather will be calm and clear. If the blackfish goes to the bottom of the
tank and hides under the mud, it will be stormy weather. We are observing our blackfish to see if it
can predict weather. When it’s time, we
will eat the blackfish or let it go.
Elementary NoSeeUms
