Trout Opener

How do I take all of my thoughts about the most anticipated day of the year and explain them in a way that a normal person can understand?

I don’t think I can… but let me try. The

First Day

The biblical creation story claims that God made the Earth in seven days. On the fifth day, he created fish. The next day he created man and gave him dominion over said fish.

This is the hardest part of the creation story for me to reconcile. I might be able to believe that God spoke the world into existence. But my hang-up is with the “dominion over fish” part.

The first day of trout season is referred to by most as “Trout Opener.”

It never seems to come soon enough. I’m sure there’s a story about an angler who lost his mind in the last stretch of spring before he could legally fish for trout. And that he’s probably somewhere in a straightjacket yelling the Latin names of hatching aquatic insects on his home water. If the story were said to be true, I might believe it.

And then there’s the fact that we’ve all come out of a long winter, and the sun has probably been shining for the first few warm days of the year. Fly boxes are full, fly rods stung up, and the rivers have been calling, but the Department of Natural Resources thinks otherwise.

I’ve started treating trout opener like a holiday. Most other holidays have some significant meaning behind the celebration, and the celebrations themselves speak to the purpose of the holiday. Families each have their traditions and special meanings for each person. One of my family traditions was formed involuntarily. Christmas Day was always spent at my mother’s side. Her parents (both WW2 veterans that lived through the great depression, WW1, and

by Seth Waters, Dark Waters Fly Shop

WW2) had one of those houses where certain rooms were not played in, and certain furniture was NOT to be used. This left me and my siblings in front of the television, watching “24 hours of the Christmas Story” all day long. EVERY YEAR. I think you get my point. Holidays are spent in unique ways by everyone.

Such things can be said about trout opener.

The way I’ve chosen to celebrate trout opener is to gauge my satisfaction with something other than the fish. It’s like offering a good attitude as homage to the fishing gods. This could include good meals prepared beforehand, simple enough to cook over an open fire, yet tasty enough to get questioned by your fishing partners or even asked for the recipe. It could also include basic observations on how your favorite river has changed through the previous winter and melt-off. If you take the time to look around, there’s always something to keep your attention on a river other than fish.

One of MY favorite things on trout opener is camping on cold nights. It gives me an opportunity to test any upgrades to my camping gear, noting the things that require too much fiddling and the things that make you ask yourself how you could have done without them until now.

I’m also a sucker for a campfire. Last year, I had a remote fishing spot where I’d light a small campfire on the river bank to keep warm on very cold days. One day, I found myself lighting it and sitting by it for a good couple of hours before realizing I had previously been comfortable fishing in temps much colder than it was that day. I immediately concluded that I like sitting by a campfire on the river just as much as I like fishing. Who would have guessed?

By taking a day and purposefully going to the river with your fishing stuff and exercising enough discipline to stay your need to cast repeatedly, you’ll start to see a bigger picture. Even if that picture is you developing a nervous twitch, knowing that you could be casting your fly rod to a fish that you assume is in the very spot you’re casting and waiting for it to eat whatever fly you tied on, because that’s what you think he’ll eat.

It goes without saying that fly fishing is a big part of my life. So I’ll have all trout season to let the trout toy with my heart and play with my mind. But not on trout opener. Trout opener is about the essence of trout fishing. At least that way, if I get bit by the “I have to catch the big one” bug later in the season, at least I started on the right foot.

Someone suggested that fishing conditions like water temperature, air temperature, snow accumulation, and runoff aren’t dependable this early in the season and aren’t always favorable to the fisherman and that this may have something to do with my lackadaisical approach. But that’s just a theory.

The truth is, I’d like to think that fish don’t control me. And this is a good exercise to prove it. If not to anyone else, at least I convinced myself for a day.

Think of it this way…

The fish gets caught by your fly because it didn’t observe well enough to detect your fly as a fake, consequences ranging anywhere from a struggle and quick escape to baptism by vegetable oil. Likewise, if we don’t take the time to observe well enough, we’ll examine a single piece of the puzzle instead of seeing the whole picture as it was intended to be viewed. And believe it or not, that span of consequences might be the same for us as they are for the fish.

Remember, on the sixth day of creation, this whole fishing thing started. That’s probably why it says God rested on the seventh day. He probably sat back and thought, “This is going to be good.” In fact, his exact words were, “It is good.”

Now… only three weeks left!

by George A. Griffith, Founder

Trout Angler Guides

Available for these Michigan Rivers: Manistee River

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