The series of heatwaves blasting my neck of the woods finally ended last week, so I went to a stocked lake in an area just southwest of Algonquin Park, accessed via abandoned logging roads and ATV/snowmobile trails. The lake, like most in Eastern Ontario, had a population of native trout which were extirpated by a combination of overfishing, development, and the introduction of non-native species. This particular lake is stocked every 2 years with a brook and lake trout sterile hybrid (splake) by the Ministry of Natural Resources to provide a put-and-take recreational fishery, which is also intended to divert angling pressure from the few remaining natural trout populations in the area.

One of several 1 ¾ lb splake (stocked as fingerlings in 2017) caught that day on a hammered blue chrome Devle-Dog.

Yep, good outing, and pretty fish! I've never seen, much less caught a splake. Are they hard-fighting? Good eating?

Hi Tomah. These fish fight very hard for their size. Splake, at least the ones from my neck of the woods, taste very good. They are less fishy tasting than the native brook and lake trout in this area, but I never keep those rare and wild fish nowadays, anyway.

Good looking fish!
Those filets look like salmon.

Is that the stock handle on your Abu 6000C?
I have a 5000C with the smaller dual prong handle and I want to replace it with one like you have on your reel.

Thanks!
I'll look online for a new Abu handle. My 5000C is from 1972 and still going strong!

I can relate. I inherited a Martin MG-7 and a Penn 209 from my granddad.
They are amongst my most treasured possessions and I try to use them as much as possible.

Got the same comment from anglers in other parts of Ontario. I don't really know why, but perhaps the difference in colour might be because of the genetic makeup of the splake coming from a specific hatchery, their diet once in the lake, or something else.

Fish can change their colors over a wide range, for mood, and to blend in their environment.
Most of the time when you're handling a fish, he has his aggression colors on. I've caught winter endemic bass over our white dolomite slabs that came up marble white, because their winter metabolism wouldn't let them change color.

I was remiss with my camera last week, because all the seatrout we caught at Green Island came up with deep greens and blues instead of the silver/pink we normally see on these fish.