Friday, 6/17/06, last full day of classes.

Our morning was mostly spent out fishing for small mouth bass. I caught one thanks to the kindness of Mike2 (we also had a Mike1) who got one on his line and passed the pole off to me. For the most part, I’ll be honest, I half heartedly cast my line and just enjoyed the scenery. It’s very beautiful out there at Lake Erie around the Bass Islands. The water was nice and calm and green (due to algae growth) and the sky was beautifully blue. My goal was to take this day as easy as I could and soak it up so I could remember it till the next time I went. (Which will be 7/9-7/15 for Local Flora for Teachers, I switched things around a bit.)

Back on shore we talked about the various fish diseases and how they might, if at all, affect us. For example, hemorrhagic septicemia was affecting yellow perch this spring but seems to be working its way out of the stock. It has appeared to move on to Sheephead but, not to sound cold, since we’re not supposed to eat Sheephead they need to be thinned out anyway, and their populations aren’t being affected as much at this point either. This is not a disease that affects humans. In fact, there really aren’t any that we know of that do affect people because our species are so different.

Speaking of things like this, we also talked about fish consumption advisories. (Here’s a link from 2001 and an update from 2006.) I figure I can deal with only eating 1 fish meal a week. Frankly, with as much walleye as I have now, I’ll be set for the next year. It’s all good.

We also talked about the various invasive species including some of the water plants and zooplankton. We also reviewed for our practical and final on Saturday. Yes, we had a final. Yes, our prof had us sweating there for a bit. Okay, not really. I sat around for a bit and made some new lures and knots for our practical and put them in baggies.

From there, Mike2 and I headed over to Put-In-Bay for some supper and to meet up with some of the girls who had gone over to have dinner at their professor’s home. It had become active with the weekend coming on and if you like people watching, this is the place for you! After puttering around some of the gift shops and having a tasty perch dinner and visiting some of the more interesting pubs to see if we could find our group we finally found them in a little microbrewery and we enjoyed a nice, relaxing few hours of chit chat. (Again I’ll say it, you’ll meet some very cool folks at Stone Lab.)

Fast forward to Saturday morning (gasp! 2 days in one entry!) we were up bright and early to get our stuff packed up and ready to roll out. I busted out my oh-so-difficult final and practical (honestly, I did change a few answers as we went along) and walked about taking photographs and talking to people and finishing packing. It felt kind of weird to be leaving and I’m sure that feeling will be worse after being there for 4 ½ weeks coming up. I really had a great time and I am very much looking forward to going again. One week and I roll out one more time, baby!