My new vocation

Because life is never bland, dull, or normal around these parts, i participated in something fairly brand new yeserday: Fish Spawning.

That is, Lake Trout. Because i am lucky enough to be employed within the environmental flight of our squadron, we have a particular interest in the origin of the fish that we stock our base lakes with. And the form that this interest takes is volunteering with the hatchery during spawn season.

So, it was yesterday morning that i piled into a truck and we cruised over to Saratoga, WY. I have actually been there once before, on a surprise visit trek for miss liz and myself before we were engaged even. They have some really cool natural hot springs in town, and combine that with the hunting that is happening right now you have the entire towns economy. 2 hours of high plains driving later, we roll into the hatchery, and i am immediately asked if i would like to assist in the 'spawning'.



Not a man to back down from anything, i was led to the changinig room and given the nicest pair of waiters i have ever worn, neoprene gloves and a raincoat. I then clown-footed it down to the channels of trout that were awaiting to be used to propel their species. (the fertilized eggs we were making today, actually, were headed to Lake Michigan.) Hopping in the cool water i met Pat, Greg, Dan, and Dave who were already up to their elbows in reproductive trout bits.

The process goes as such: There are two pools of trout, segregated by gender. The girls were netted and put into a smaller trough of water that was dilluted with an anesthetic (read: fishie GHB) where they eventually pass out. Pat the showed me the correct way to grip the lovely ladies by the tail and run my hands down the bottom of their bellies to empty their egg sac into a bucket. And holy cow do these things make eggs. Little orange pellets go screaming out, and when they're empty you've collected 3300-7000 eggs. Empty and dying for water, the ladies are tossed (literally) over the fence to the other pen where they wake up lost, confused, inverted and used.

The egg bucket gets passed over to the boy pen, where the boys are getting the same treatment but give a different result. Their swimmers (ha!) are mixed with the bucket of eggs, and are then walked up to the cleaning station. There the mixture is rinsed, collected, and set to gestate in bins.

Needless to say, by the end of the day i smelled absolutely great and all my wife wanted to do was snuggle with me once i finally arrived home. True story.

It was a really cool experience, even if it felt slightly awkward to be coaxing eggs out of lady fish that i had never even met before, let alone was friends with. (So, how've you been? Seen any good movies lately? Here, enjoy this tub of wonderful water. No no, you're probably just tired from all of the swimming around in endless circles you do...) I would have been more comfortable killing them, i think, than drugging them for their multiplactive properties, but, i was still glad to help.

Go here for a few more pictures of the fun that was had.