Deployed

 The Fish Hut is out.  It's been a slow start to the season, but the weather has relented and decided that, yes, it is indeed Winter in Canada.

David and Brian got a trail packed in across the bay. This is a crucial ingredient in the exercise, since the recent heavy snowfall produced a lot of slush on the lake.

Slush is not fun -- it forms a watery layer between the snow and the ice. You won't fall through the ice -- but you will fall into the slush, which will promptly freeze and clump and make travel next to impossible.  On skiis or snowshoes, it is brutal. Drop a snowmobile into it, and you're probably parked there till spring melt...

Once a trail is packed in, however, the slush freezes down solid and there is a solid footing on which to tow the fish hut.  This is a good thing -- you can't tow fast enough to keep a sled up out of the slush.  Taffy was also appreciative of the packed trail, which kept her paws dry.

Dave has a Fish Finder... which would doubtless work better if  the fish down below the ice didn't have their own Dave Finder which will probably let them avoid the entire operation.

Time and bait will tell!  The hut is strategically located close to where Vic and John had really good fishing luck last year.  Good luck, that is, except for the time the eagle swiped their trout right off the ice.