Spring is coming. To many people, that means “Spring Cleaning”. To me, it means “Spring

 Fishing”.

  Cool mornings with a misty fog atop the water, the rich aroma of nightcrawlers in their bedding, the sound of bass gulping shiners on the surface, and the smell of blooming flowers along the shoreline. It doesn’t get any better than this.

  Some of the fondest memories of my childhood are those of Opening Day of the trout season in New Jersey. Of course, all of the trout were stocked fish, but that didn’t deter the avid anglers who lined the lakeshore on that April morning. Everyone would wait with rods poised in mid-air, ready to make their first cast at the sound of the game warden’s whistle.

  Ah, the Game Warden. He knew my friend Wayne and I well. We spent much of our time avoiding him. He spent much of his time trying to catch us. It’s not that we were game violators, per se, but we did stretch the rules quite a bit.

  Take the stocking program, for example. The Fish and Game department took great pains to maintain secrecy when stocking the lakes and streams. They always did it at odd hours or rainy days, when there would be no spectators. The reason for this was that after the fish were netted from the large tanker trucks in which they were transported and dropped in the lake, they would congregate in that small area for several days. Being hatchery fish, they were accustomed to staying in close schools, and it took two or three days for them to start spreading out into the lake proper. That’s where Wayne and I came in.

  Living close to the lake, there was little that went on that we didn’t know about. We also knew that Fish and Game would be stocking the lake several days prior to the season opening, and we were on watch. Once the hatchery truck was sighted, we stealthily watched the operation from a well-hidden vantage point. Once it was completed and the truck had lumbered on up the lake road, we would spring into action. It was Pre-Opening Day, after all.

  Those trout were so hungry and disoriented; it was literally like shooting fish in a barrel!
We could stand in one spot and catch fish for hours. They were all released, and this was long before the ethic of “catch and release” practiced today. We were there for the pull, not the pan. Hard as it is to believe, that game warden didn’t share our enthusiasm for this sort of fishing. As a matter of fact, he took a rather dim view of the practice. I think that his real aggravation was based on being outsmarted by a couple of 12 year olds.

  There is no Opening Day in Dunnellon. No rainbow trout. There is, however, the Rainbow River, chocked full of huge bass and tasty bream. I still have a spot at the water’s edge, where I can thrill at the excitement of a rod tip bouncing with a strike. On cool Spring days such as this, I am 12 years old once again.

  Life is good. It’s even better when you fish.


RB