Spring is loaded with new beginnings, many of which carry the label “Opening Day”. Whether it’s opening day of baseball season, tog season, or trout season, they all mark a fixed point in time that conjures a familiar feeling. I think it’s that familiarity that makes them special. As we grow older, we tend to seek experiences that we know will make us feel a certain way. It’s comforting to do something and already know it’s going to make you feel the same way it made you feel last year… or 30 years ago.
This is a huge part of why make time for so many of the things I love to do. Whether it’s taking a road trip with my brother to go a see a Phish concert or getting the team back together to play in a Wiffle Ball tournament, these activities began when we were teenagers and I enjoy them so much because, once I step into the mindset that goes along with them, I temporarily lose my grip on time. In my head, the way I feel, I could be 15 or 45. I look at the people around me and realize how lucky I am that we have stuck together for all this time and that we still make time for these things that so many other people just don’t as adults.
Growing up in Massachusetts, we didn’t have an opening day of trout season. I learned through the infectious excitement of my uncle, that our fishing season began when the stocking truck pulled away from our local reservoir. This was long before the days of social media and the news of “the res being stocked” was something whispered between friends, a secret, promised to keep. Even when Uncle Jon called to tell me that the trout had been stocked, he followed it immediately with a warning not to tell anyone.
As a kid with no transportation other than my bike, the reservoir was a little too far for me to pedal off to until I was maybe 13 or 14, so I had to beg my parents for a ride or pester my uncle into taking me. And I often wasn’t able to get there until the weekend, which took a little bit of the fire out of it, because, by then, there were 20 guys posted up in all the (supposedly) best spots. I can distinctly remember that feeling of panic in my little heart, when we’d arrive and see rods sticking out from every space in the brush lining the water, with trout struggling on stringers, I felt like I wanted to break into a sprint and fire off a cast, so as not to waste another second!
But one year, I pulled it off. The call came and my mom agreed to give me a ride. What I really wanted was to stop at the bait shop first, but by the look she shot me after asking, I knew that detour was not happening, so I had to use lures. I had caught dozens – if not hundreds – of trout at that point in my life, but I had always used bait. Going on the words of my grandfather, who called the bright orange/black dot Daredevil spoon a “trout spoon” I pulled out the closest thing I had which was an orange and gold spoon called the Kamlooper.
I remember this vividly and I could stand in my exact footprints if I were there now. There was a one other guy who must’ve gotten the call, I asked him if he’d caught anything, he replied with an annoyed, “no”. With my Kamlooper tied on, I fired a cast from the grassy shoreline. On that first cast I felt the jolt of a trout hitting the lure, but it didn’t stick. On what I believe was the very next cast, I hooked up. Almost instantly, the 18-inch rainbow took to the air, and I saw my bait-soaking friend perk up with jealous astonishment, running to his car to find a lure. The rest of the memory isn’t as crisp, I know I landed three trout, a brookie and a nice brown to go with the ‘bow.
But as I sit here looking out my window, allowing my eyes to fade to see the memory in my mind, I’m struck by two things. The first, is just how certain everything seemed, my grandfather lived down the road and it seemed he would always be there. I’d be going back to school in the morning, like it seemed that I would always have to do. The second thing that strikes me is, I’m pretty sure I was 11 and I was alone, trusted by my mother. I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t helpless, as I was learning to be alone, gaining life experience and building common sense.
On this opening day, take the lead and introduce a kid to fishing. And someday soon, when they have it all down to muscle memory, give them the space and respect to ‘just be’. It’s ok if they mess up, it’s even ok if they scrape a knee or get poison ivy, we need these kids to have the confidence to be alone sometimes and to make their own decisions. Opening day is about family traditions, but fishing is about perfecting the art of being alone and mastering the feeling of doing something simply for the personal satisfaction that comes with getting a little better at doing something you love.
