April 2-3, 2016 - Deep Thoughts... Opening Day Observations

That's me and my hat on the right.  John Gierach eat your heart out.

Invariably this time of year, someone asks the question on a fishing discussion board, usually someone honestly excited that trout season is opening after a long winter:  Who’s going out Opening Day?  

The answers are so predictable and run the gamut from self-aggrandizing to snobbery to genuine excitement: I don’t chase pelletheads!  I am going to catch some and use them for cut bait.  I will be there as I am every year because it’s a tradition with my dad or buddies or kid.  I will be there for tradition but I would rather be a) striper fishing, b) catfishing, c) bass fishing, etc.  I am bringing my kids because that’s how I started.  I will go to see the zoo, but I won’t fish until next week when I will clean the place out with a) my fly rod, b) a lure no else knows how to fish, c) corn, minnows, etc.  I will have my limit by 8:45 AM and be sleeping off a hangover in the truck.  And so on….

First of 2016, my Opening Day, January 7th.

Because I trout fish all year long, I no longer have an opening day, per se, though I do mark the first fish of the new year, usually.  As a kid who slept in my dad’s pickup cap all night in the Bell’s Mill parking lot the evening before Opening Day (try doing that now!) I have to wonder what time, enlightened science, “enlightened science,” social media, changes to stocking procedures, and propaganda from both sides have done (don’t get me started with the GoPro!).  I am 47 years old later this month, so despite the number of posts I have made to a discussion board or forum, I am no newbie.  Here’s what’s happening from my point of view:  

A lot of fly guys hate bait chuckers because they leave trash behind, bait guys trying to catch dinner hate fly guys for tossing them back (and not even taking them out of the water anymore), and spinner guys who have run-ins with fly guys on Class A creeks are made to feel like intruders.  They both hate Powerbaiters.  I don’t bait fish, but I don’t fish exclusively in one way or another, either.  I still like a spinning rod, and I treat the stream and the fish with the same respect I do when I fish with a fly rod. On a day where a guy who fishes exclusively with a fly rod (or wouldn’t cheat and throw “meat” at them) would be home because the stream is too high and muddy, I am catching trout that are usually ghosts, seldom scene and less often caught.  If you fish for wild fish with a plug or spinner, you get less than a second to set the hook.  I rarely have more than 1/3 of a treble hook in the fish’s mouth, and many get a long distance release after a short battle.  To me, if a 5 foot spinning rod and a trout magnet is the right tool for a tiny mountain trickle, then what’s the different between a jig with one hook and a nymph with one hook besides the fisherman’s preference?  I am willing to bet fish mortality with a trout magnet is on par with the fly, and I don’t tie a dropper to a trout magnet, so there is no chance of hooking a fin or eye ball with the trailing dropper fly either…

I have an ATW/trout stream literally 500 feet from my house.  It is stocked.  It is 4 miles from Philadelphia, and it is one of the reasons why I moved to this neighborhood.  If I don’t fish it, I am an idiot.  I do fish it, and I make it as challenging or fun for myself as I can.  When the water temp gets close to 70 degrees, I stop fishing it.  Sometimes I just walk it, and I think about fishing.

The boy having fun on my local ATW.  Although, if he breaks the tip of my St Croix, I am garnishing his allowance......

Like most fisherman, I started with bait as a kid, then moved to the fly rod, then spent 5 years throwing spinners until they got too easy or too limiting, then I spent 5 years or more throwing plugs until they got too predictable or limiting, then I picked up the fly rod again after an absence.  And now I rotate between artificials on the spinning rod and flies on the fly rod.  Surf and stream.  Boat and bank.  Wild and stocked.  Near and far.  This is the same reason there are guys who only dry fly fish or only throw plugs in the surf. My buddy Jeff and I, even at 12, were sort of pissed that the Inquirer photographer caught us not in our waders in the creek, but instead acting like kids on the bridge.  We were finished fishing for real and just waiting for my dad to catch up to us before heading for home.  It’s the fisherman’s choice of how to fish legally, as I said above, and it's his or her own internal rules and self-imposed limitations on how it should be done.  I know where trout live because I fished for them a long time before I used a fly rod to fish for them.  I try not to judge, and we really shouldn’t if we all want the resource to remain.  Honestly, the offenders, the polluters, the yahoos, all disappear by May 1 (most after the first week or two), and there are still fish in the ATWs convenient for a short hour long excursion near home before and/or after work.  My buddy Eric and I caught fish last night within sight of our neighbors’ houses, for example.  There are never going to be wild trout in the mighty Wissahickon, but I am glad I have a creek near my house where I can have some convenient fun, and my kid can experience a bit of what I did growing up.  I don’t even have to drive to it, so is that environmentally friendly and evolved or what?

Things have changed in other ways too, and I know it’s hard not to judge others and their methods.  Many young bucks don’t want to trick wily trout; they want to hold up a 30 lb flathead or striped bass that they caught on cut bait, as if putting a rod in a forked stick is some great accomplishment.  Fishing or angling to me is paramount most days but not all the time.  How one catches a fish does matter, sometimes, even if it brings about harsh judgments from the different camps.  There are guys who sneak after skittish carp with a fly rod and there are guys who bait a hole for two days and then show up with the same bait, just to hold up a 20 lb carp on social media.  I don’t get it.  Standing on third thinking you hit a triple, as I have heard Reverend Al Sharpton say.  I don’t get it, but I don’t let it provoke resentment in me either.  Fishing a private section of Spruce Creek and holding up trophies like they were tough to catch.  Fishing exclusively with a guide and thinking you had an equal share in the success of the day.  Chumming.  I think the process and the journey do matter, sometimes.  But, I don’t hate either.  And sometimes I just like to catch fish.  I have fished with a guide.  I have chunked for tuna, chummed grass shrimp for weakfish, soaked bunker for bass, soaked chicken livers for channel cats.  I may have even caught trout on Velveeta cheese and bluegills on hot dog.  I have fished a long time and did not arrive to the sport fully formed.  All those experiences are formative.  Not everyone evolves completely.  Kenny and I will still yell at my old man when he doesn’t think and tosses a butt in the water in Canada.  He does think most of the time though, and he’s a self-proclaimed retired ditch digger from Olney with a high school education, and it’s because he has wanted to evolve.  And sometimes he just wants to catch fish.

My younger brother and I below the "Trust" before there was a "Trust."

I like when I hear stories about fly fishermen gently educating the ignorant or, better yet, uninformed.  Honestly, I do.  To get all indignant does no one any good.  Here’s an analogy I come back to from time to time.  It’s based on a real experience.  As a college administrator who works primarily with freshmen, I have had male students roasted by female faculty for their uninformed, ignorant misogyny and/or sexism.  But is it fair to demonize an 18 year, working class kid because he doesn’t yet have an informed sexual politics or wasn’t aware that his paper was revealing him as a woman hater?  Isn’t an 18 year still in his formative years and could still learn about equality from a strong woman?  Do we really expect the average LAX bro to show up as a freshman and be a feminist?  If someone is new to fishing and chucks Powerbait on a bobber is treating him like the enemy going to get him to respect your point of view and the resource?  Do you make future fly fishermen by making everyone think the fly fishermen are intolerant?

Wild, stocked, holdover, green weenie, any less fun?

The snobbery extends to wild fish verses stocked fish, too.  Pelletheads, is a favorite disparaging remark thrown around.  The debate has gone on forever.  People like to think stocked fish are stupid and wild fish are smart.  Stocked trout are easy to catch, and wild fish are hard.  I found a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1991 that shows how the bias starts.  Here is the link:  Stocked Thugs Looking for Handouts.  The basic premise is that hatchery trout are bullies who chase wild fish out, which may be true, but I have also found that browns and rainbows prefer different water and there are plenty of ATWs that have been found to carry a Class A population of wild browns despite the thugs from the West Coast and the European Union relatives they left behind.  Also, stocked trout will eat out of your hand, basically.  That was a good one.  Mistaking how fish act in a hatchery for how they act after a short time in the wild is bad science, and promoting the observation as book is also irresponsible.  Also notable, Valley Creek stocking ceased due to the health risks of the water, not any high minded ideals.

If native trout are so hard to catch, why do brook trout sometimes hit my indicator as hard as they take my nymph?  I have switched to a dry fly many, many times after being prompted by a wild or native trout hungry for pink plastic or orange foam.  If wild trout are so hard to catch why can a spinner fisherman like PA Angler contributor Frank Nale regularly catch over 100 wild browns in a day?  Are fly guys aware that there is a community of spinner fishermen who “tie” their own lures too, that haunt the same remote, wild trout streams they do, usually in higher water than the fly guys would fish with dry flies?  A quick perusal through a community like HuntingPA.com’s trout and salmon forum will reveal many fishermen catching wild browns like they were sunnies at the local pond.  Here is one trip from this year, already, his first of many, I am sure: Trout/Salmon Forum on HuntingPA.com

I guess the point of my ramble is, Can’t we all just get along?  Can’t we all learn a little something?  If I get my news and opinions solely from PAFlyfish or MSNBC am I any better than my neighbor who watches Fox News and thinks all fly fishermen are rich snobs?  Ignorance happens on both sides, and progress stalls when the Other becomes unworthy of empathy.  Granted, there are always going to be a-holes on both sides of the aisle, and there's always going to be politics in science, but those in the middle, those capable of deeper thoughts, need to work together so my grandkids can catch trout down the street from my house.

Yes, my son and I were out on Opening Day with my childhood friend Jeff and his kids trying to keep a tradition going.