I love SNOW!!!!

Okay, I know my friends in the northeast who got dumped on this winter won't think this is amusing, but today in southeast Michigan we FINALLY got what I would consider a good dumping of snow.  Probably about 10-12 inches. Yippee!

Only bad thing is that it isn't an official snow day (i.e., day off school or work), since we already have the day off for President's Day.  I think I still might go out and make a few presidential snow people in the front yard, just for fun!

borrowed from http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c26776-27.jpg

I remember making snow tunnels in Chicagoland as a kid, after the winds had made a foot of snow into drifts several feet in depth.  That didn't happen all the time, but a good dumping of lake effect snow in the suburbs that results in not having to go to school is quite a memorable event.

When we moved from Illinois to Maryland, I could not believe that we got out of school for only a few inches of snow.  In Alaska the schools rarely closed either.  The big surprise school closing was the day that someone broke into the lot where they kept all of Juneau's public school buses, and slashed all the tires.

Time to find my snow pants!

It is a new year, and my thoughts turn to ----- hybrids!!!

Normally, my hybrid daydreams are of the automotive variety, but in learning a bit about the hatcheries in my current home state, I found out about a very attractive fish that is heavily stocked in Michigan's upper penninsula.  Its common name is splake, and it is pictured below:

borrowed from http://www.maine.gov/ifw/fishing/species/identification/splake.htm

I know a bit about fishes, and I had not heard of this fellow.  It is actually a hybrid between a brown (or speckled) trout, and a lake trout, hence the mishmashed name - SPLAKE.  The Marquette hatchery released over 300K of them a few years back.  Their web page is not up to date, so I don't know if they are still breeding this cultivar.

One thing I do know is that it looks awful tasty.....

As hubby and I traveled from west to east thru Canada to get to my new duty station, we took a fly fishing charter on a beautiful lake in Jasper National Park.  I had my gear in the car, but we thought it would make more sense to "go with the pros" as it were.  They provide everything, including the license.

We got in the wooden canoe powered by an electric motor, and helped the guide set up the gear, as we traveled to a good fishing spot.  I thought we would be casting with dry or wet flies, but it turns out that the best method for this lake is to troll at 1-2 knots with the fly sunk down about 15-20 feet.  We both caught an energetic lake trout, but we could not keep them as we were not local residents.  I don't normally believe in "catch and release" (I am more of a "catch and eat" gal), but we had a great time nonetheless.

So I guess that is an example of hybrid fishing as well!