zo·o·plank·ton (noun) – plankton consisting of small animals and the immature stages of larger animals.
How do you fish for zooplankton?
What’s smaller than the aleutian wing trawl net and bigger than the vertical net? The Methot Trawl! (Of course!)
We’ve only done this twice in the last 30 days, and it’s been pretty interesting. 
In search of krill and other small creatures, last Sunday we towed this fine mesh net at a depth of 100 meters for five minutes, and today we went to 225 meters for 15 minutes.
Anything stuck in the net is rinsed into the cod end with seawater.
The result is a fun bucket of goop!
Inside are some pretty cool things I’ve never seen before, mostly these round ctenophores.
I wish I could share a photo through these cool magnifying glasses…
…the diversity was pretty amazing. I knew that there would be amphipods and krill, but I was surprised to see tiny larval crabs and squid.
Krill.
Most of the organisms are too small and too numerous to count, so we measure them by volume rather than by mass or by counting individuals, as we did with the hake and other larger species.
Spindrift 