Trout love: P.E.I. photographer gets up close and personal with brook trout

Sean Landsman knows how to make fish sound sexy. 

In an online story, entitled Trout Love, he writes: "In November of each year, Prince Edward Island's red-tinged rivers appear calm and placid. But, beneath the surface, brightly coloured brook trout weave a tangled web of love."

Say what?

Part of Landsman's mission in sharing the photographs is to take the average person below the water's surface, helping the rest of us understand what he feels so compelling about freshwater fishes. 

"To get people interested in life beneath the water's surface," explained Landsman. "A lot of times conservationists have a difficult time getting people to care about what's in rivers and lakes."

"Bring it into their homes, so to speak, through their computers, and show people an aspect of life in P.E.I. rivers that many don't get to see in the hopes of inspiring them to care about the rivers."

Conservation photography

As well as being a superb photographer, Landsman, who's originally from Chicago, is also a PhD candidate in the biology department at UPEI.

His work focuses on the movement of fish upstream on P.E.I., including the brook trout.

With his photography, Landsman aims to amp up the romance around these spawning brook trout. Watching them, he says it's hard not to draw parallels to human behaviour.

"When I was watching this, I was remembering back to some of my undergrad days where you would go to a bar and see this kind of behaviour," joked Landsman.

He conveys that in his photo captions.

"Like lecherous boys at an undergrad nightclub, three males try to out-macho each other for a chance at the pretty brunette leaning seductively against the bar," he wrote in one.

Landsman may like the sexy side of the brook trout, but his favourite photo featured one bad boy male being attacked by a female because he was trying to eat the eggs she had just laid.

Ouch.

Joking aside, Landsman admited he doesn't want to anthropomorphize the fish, just help everyone to better understand the challenges they face, such as, in the cast of the brook trout on P.E.I., excessive sedimentation and pesticide runoff from farm fields.

Better than snorkeling

Underwater photography has its challenges. To get the shots of the brook trout, Landsman set up a remote camera on a tripod with a waterproof flash near a redd, or nest.  He stayed near the edge of the river, so he didn't have to walk through spawning habitat.

He ran a bike brake cable, attached to the shutter lever. Then, he sat on the shore in a spot where he could observe the fish and then snap photos as they came within camera range.

"I could see the fish pretty clearly and as soon as they swam in front of the camera, I would just pull the trigger," explained Landsman.

He also placed a GoPro camera, mounted to a 5 pound dive weight, which he says the brook trout accepted it as another rock.

Last year, Landsman tried snorkeling with his camera to get footage of the brook trout but he says the remote camera was much less intrusive.

"I'm moving too much when I'm snorkeling in the water so this is a very unobtrusive method to observe their behaviour."

Long hours

Landsman logged some long days during the spawning season, two full weeks, three to six hours at a time, but he said it's all worth it. 

"There's a lot of amazing beautiful things that are happening, I mean brook trout are just such a spectacular fish and at this time of year they're particularly beautiful looking because they're in their spawning colours," he said.

"Virtually every river on P.E.I. has brook trout," said Landsman.

"If we continue to degrade habitats, we risk damaging permanently these habitats which will have a direct consequence for these fish who live in those rivers."

Next up for the fish-loving photographer?

He's aiming to finish up his PhD next year but hopes to stay on P.E.I. and continue sharing his love for the love life of freshwater fish.

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