Triploids

Tunkwa and Leighton Lake, Near Merritt, British Columbia, June 2007.

All the reasons were right to "hit theee rrroad". The cousins were in town.

The Tiff-ster had a severe case of senior-itis and needed a break before college (sigh).

The Cyn-ster finally got away from her busy touring/recording/partyin' with the stars schedule.

And of course, our crazed fishing addiction was slowly being assimilated by Jon. Hehehe. . . and the plan was coming to fruition.

We left home shamefuly late, and brought with us none of the items we needed for camping (as we would later discover). But hey what an adventure when you've got eating utensils, and more than one cooking pot?

After setting up tent city, we raced down to the water to behold the most beautiful sight. The elusive rainbow trout were jumping everywhere. And they were large enough to make me salivate.

I had heard that the lake was stocked with triploid trout, genetically modified to have 3 chromosomes instead of the usual 2. What? you say. Well, allow me to explain.

(Boring science part, omit if necessary) "Normally the female egg donates 2 sets of chromosomes (X and X) and the male sperm donates 1 set (X or Y). One chromosome sets gets kicked out during the development of a normal fish, but that step is missed sometimes. Triploidy actually happens in the wild, but scientists can induce the event by putting the eggs under pressure or heat-shock. "

Anwyays, the reality is that tripoid trout are like trout on steroids. Large in mass but poorly endowed. They spend all their energy on growing but not reproducing (in fact they are sterile). Didn't Michael Crighton warn us about this? Something about frog DNA and life finding a way. Ahhh but from a fisherman's standpoint, I say "Yeehaw!, they sure is fun to catch!."

Let the slide show begin.