Vol. XCI1I 
-.--- 
APRIL, 1923 
No. 4 
EARLY SPRING TROUT FISHING 
THE IMPATIENT ANGLER EAGERLY AWAITS THE DAWN OF “OPEN¬ 
ING DAY’ WHEN HIS FAVORITE STREAMS WILL KNOW HIM AGAIN 
By EUGENE V. CONNETT 3RD 
T HERE arc two reasons why we 
find so many more anglers out 
on the streams in the earlier part 
of the season than later on in 
June and July; I shouldn’t care to 
say which of the reasons is the more 
weighty. 
Sometime during the month of 
February the angler is conscious of 
a stirring in his blood; something 
within him awakes; his mind seems 
to throw off the husk of winter, just 
as a snake sloughs its skin. A warm 
day with its attendant thaw affects 
him to the extent that he turns his 
thoughts, willy-nilly, to fishing. lie 
realizes that he cannot fish for trout 
for two months yet, but for some 
reason he must look to his tackle, re¬ 
plenishing it in such departments as 
are weak; he is a rare angler who 
can bring his stock of flies and other 
accessories up to the point of prac¬ 
tical sufficiency without going ma¬ 
terially beyond this point. 
There is a day in March—it falls 
on a different date for each angler, 
perhaps—when he foots up the total 
days and hours that separate him 
from the “opening;” from that time 
on he counts the minutes as they 
pass. During these last few weeks 
his desire to go fishing reaches a 
fever heat, until, with the dawn of 
the first day of the open season, he 
.is seized with a madness to wade and 
cast and—catch a trout. 
So the first reason for finding so 
many anglers on the stream early in 
the season is this six weeks preced¬ 
ing the opening day. The sap of 
awakening spring stirs through our 
veins; the call of the buds, the ice- 
free waters, and the arriving birds 
urge us to bestir ourselves from the 
fireside. Just as the young man’s 
fancy lightly turns in a very laudable 
direction, so does the angler’s in a 
somewhat different one. And the re¬ 
sult of all this is that we stumble over 
each other on the stream, trying to find 
casting room among our happy fellows 
of the angle. 
Now the other reason for the great 
popularity of the early season is not rooted 
in quite so poetically enriched ground; 
The first one of the season 
it springs from baser soil, but like the 
gnarled old tree among the rocks, its 
roots go deep. Consider for a moment 
that trout have fasted the winter long, 
and imagine the ungovernable hunger 
that must gnaw at their vitals. One can 
hardly blame them for not yet having 
acquired the appetites of epicures. 
1 hey are to be forgiven for swirling 
and darting at bottom and midwater, 
instead of dining at the surface with 
leisure and dignity on the dainty 
winged morsels that May and June 
will set before them. That trout* will 
reward the efforts of less expert 
anglers during this period of the 
spring feast, while they begrudge suc¬ 
cess to the most skillful later on, ac¬ 
counts for the presence of many and 
many a fisherman on the streams in 
April and early May; or, we may say, 
accounts for the absence of them dur¬ 
ing the more difficult time. 
With a March Brown for clear, 
and a Coachman for cloudy water, 
the angler of April searches the rush¬ 
ing freshets with singing heart and 
numbed fingers. The novice proudly 
takes on the colors of the expert 
during this happy period, dispensing 
his catch among admiring and grate¬ 
ful friends with a forgivable touch 
of hauteur. For at least one month 
in the year it would seem that all 
men are created equal. Those mod¬ 
erns who look askance on the hon¬ 
orable wet fly of ancient times, con¬ 
tent themselves with the thought that 
by the end of next month their su¬ 
perior art will win where it must 
now concede at least equality with 
the “baser” method. 
Comes a time when the waters re¬ 
cede; the melted mantle of winter 
has run off to the sea, and the trout 
have taken on a becoming plumpness. 
It would seem that the number of 
anglers varies directly with the 
Contents copyriyhtcd by Forest and Stream Pub. Co. 
Page 165 
