Surprise of the season:
Trout season 2020 had an unconventional kickoff. The traditional opening had been set for yesterday, April 18, but the Fish and Boat Commission announced April 7 that it had opened the season as of 8:00 a.m. that morning. It was a hard but rational decision by the Fish and Boat board. The first day of trout season is a social event. Many people participate for the festive atmosphere as much as the fishing. Disease concern forced Fish and Boat to defuse anglers鈥� incentive to congregate along streams and lakeshores.
I learned about the opening by email just before noon that day. My gear is always stashed in my truck, and I鈥檓 fortunate to live near a lot of trout-fishing choices, so I decided to go. The surprise season seemed a good time to sample Big Sandy Creek鈥檚 popular stretch near Elliotsville. I seldom fish Big Sandy because it鈥檚 often crowded, and I enjoy getting away from the road.
No other anglers were evident when I parked and started fishing in a chilly rain. But there were lots of eager fish鈥揳ll brown trout 鈥� in likely spots, and within an hour it was clear the 鈥済reen light鈥� to fish was circulating fast. Outdoor-type vehicles started pulling into wide spots and fishermen spilled over the guide rail to the water. By the time I left it had begun to look like a normal opening day, recalling long-ago trout season kickoffs that endure in memory.
To claim a good fishing spot on opening morning back in the late 鈥�60s, school pals Jim Lizza, Charlie Jaynes, both from Dunbar, and I slept on a mostly flat rock far upstream on Dunbar Creek. That part of the stream flows through state game lands, where it鈥檚 illegal to camp. But we figured that without the comforts of tent, sleeping bag, fire and food, it wasn鈥檛 technically camping. We just 鈥渘apped鈥� on a rock in our fishing clothes through the iron-cold April night. Did I say that rock was flat? No matter how you turned, hard, cold bumps sprouted from its surface in all the wrong places.
When I was even younger, my dad and my Uncle Max Furin took us annually to open the season on Laurel Hill Creek in Somerset County. I think it was even colder up there. Back then you could legally begin fishing at 5:00 a.m., which is dark as midnight, but there was no way you were going to wait for sunup while other people were catching trout.
Anglers who know Laurel Hill know its rocks are coated with slippery aquatic moss. Hobbling around in the dark, on slippery rocks, I always fell in. There is no way to get colder, and survive it, than falling into a mountain creek in Somerset County before daylight in April, with your tight denim jeans soaked inside rubber boots. I did catch three trout, though, the first time I dunked, which rendered the shivering irrelevant.
By the mid-1970s I鈥檇 convinced my girlfriend鈥搘ho surprisingly became my wife 鈥� to join in this pleasure. This was during my Jonathan Run season-opening span, a small but beautiful brook downriver from Ohiopyle which is no longer considered a trout stream after a tragic mine-acid pollution event later that decade.
A group of friends, including Chip and Jim Kubala, also from near Dunbar, and I had nurtured a tradition of gathering around one inviting Jonathan Run hole, about the size of your average bathroom. We all crowded the water waiting for the by then amended and much saner 8:00 a.m. legal commencement. My 鈥渄ate,鈥� not being from 鈥渁round here,鈥� was unaccustomed to this quaint ritual and found it amusing 鈥� a knot of similarly-attired sportsmen ringing a large natural bathtub, with their fishing rods all pointed inward. She overestimated my own amusement when she snagged her first 8:00 o鈥檆lock cast in a tree, and everyone else caught their limit while I untangled her line. We have not fished a lot together in subsequent years.
Another year my dad, Bud Moyer, my sister Kim and I opened the fishing year on Jonathan. I was getting seriously into fly-fishing, which we鈥檇 all dabbled in by that point. We separated, but I couldn鈥檛 get a trout to bite on flies鈥搕he peak of angling achievement. Still being in transition as a fly-angler, I had stashed a jar of bright-yellow Mike鈥檚 cheesy salmon eggs in my vest. When the trout continued their boycott of feathers and fur, I re-rigged and lobbed a salmon egg into the flow, catching my limit in minutes.
Later, when Dad, Kim, and I re-grouped, I proudly displayed my catch, artfully arranged on a pillow of moss by the creek.
鈥淲ow! What did you catch 鈥檈m on?鈥� Dad and Kim inquired as one.
鈥淲ell鈥 was fishing a muskrat nymph most of the morning,鈥� I replied. This statement was technically true, especially in the expected context of fish tales, but it concealed the essential falsehood.
Just then a bright yellow salmon egg rolled out of one trout鈥檚 mouth, coming to rest on green moss, and I was busted.
My dad told that story for years afterward, every time I got too confident in my fishing prowess. I deserved it.
The same trio shared the best opening day of all. Dad suggested we shed the expected crowd and walk far back in the mountain to a stream he鈥檇 fished as a kid. Kim and I liked the idea. We parked at the top of the mountain and hiked far downslope, threading among boulders. A vivid thing I recall from that walk is a huge great horned owl that swooped from a tree above us and glided through the woods ahead. For some reason, I can still see that owl on its half-century-old glide. When we got to the 鈥渃rick,鈥� we lobbed our baits into emerald pools and caught the tiny, but beautiful, wild trout of the mountains, native fish that never saw the inside of a hatchery truck. I believe that day shaped the way I鈥檝e felt about fish, water, and mountains for the rest of my life.
Go fishing if you can. Any inconvenience or embarrassment is worth the memories.
Ben Moyer is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.