Apr 8, 2017 4 min read

It would be safe for me to say a certain Saturday in April could well be my favorite day of the year.

Of course, I am referring to the first day of the regular trout season in our part of the state.

It on this day that some of my best memories have been formed. I know I am a rifle guru and deer hunting junkie but some of the opening days of deer season are spoiled with other hunters stealing a partner’s buck or someone trying to take my hard-built tree stand and so on.

I can’t think of too many bad happenings on the opening day of trout season.

In a few more days I will find myself muddy, tired and drifting a nightcrawler into a deep hole in a local stream hoping for one of those jumbo trout the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission stocks here and there.

A purist I am not and there are times I will fly fish and other days when I want to catch something and place a high importance in that. Occasionally, I just want to catch a fish!

In many instances there will be a spinner tied to the end of my 4-pound line but I am not adverse to the use of a maggot, mealworm or nightcrawler. As my friend, Mario D’Amico, once said, “Would you rather have a real steak or a plastic one?”

Similarly, would the fish rather have a plastic worm or a real one?

I don’t know how many years ago it was, but my family was still intact when we made our way east to the Wills Creek Watershed to start the season.

My fishing companions were my wife, Eileen, and our children, Pat and Kathy. Both youngsters were still young – Pat about 12 and Kathy 10 – but we had fished there before.

Back then you hard to wait until 9 a.m. to start fishing but some anglers would arrive early to hold their spots. The place we were fishing that day was actually on a tributary of Wills Creek named Brush Creek. This particular spot was near a waterfall and covered bridge.

We parked our car, grabbed our equipment and our bait and walked along the short path to the creek. We had to step over a man sleeping right in the path but we did so carefully so as not to disturb his peace and quiet.

Since we fished here on a yearly basis, we knew most of the people who were present. I asked a fellow angler about the dreamland angler along the path.

It seems he hold gotten there really early and fell asleep waiting. We were glad there wasn’t anything wrong with him and just tended to our own business. He sure was angry when he woke up at almost 11 a.m.

I wasn’t the first with bait in the water at but I sure wasn’t the last.

It was one of those mornings when you couldn’t keep trout off the hook. We eat trout, so I kept a few as did Eileen and Pat. We didn’t want to limit out, for there was more stream calling our name.

But Kathy had waded out to a flat rock and was having a ball hooking and landing trout after trout. I must admit a few others were having a good day, but there was one fellow not even getting a bite.

He tried everything he had but he couldn’t catch anything. Finally, he waded out directly in front of the little blonde girl on the rock.

I must admit it angered me to see someone about six feet directly in front of my daughter when there was a lot of water to fish.

In fact, he could have fished the same water as Kathy without stepping in front of her. I thought of going down and bumping him from behind but he might have drowned, so I thought better of it waiting and watching.

Then I realized she was still catching fish by casting around him and the kicker was he still wasn’t catching anything.

Other fond memories are trips made to the tiny brook trout streams of McKean County.

It was an adventure to find a stream far from the road that looked fishy. Sometimes we would walk a mile to fish waters revealed to us on a map.

It was like Christmas morning finding those little streams that held those brightly colored native brook trout, our state fish.

Trout season has been a joy. It is the time of year when you can go out and make your own memories.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.