Start of Fishing Season

Fishing season used to open on April 15th, and anyone under 16 years old didn’t need a license. Now we were not a big fishing family but for some reason we all got excited about opening day. We would get our poles ready on the 14th, and spend the night searching the yard for night crawlers. That morning we were up before the sun, strapping our poles and lunch boxes onto our bikes. We would peddle the mile or so to Poor Meadow Brook trying to arrive before the rest of South Hanson junior fishermen. The state stocked the river with Rainbow trout the week before, so we were confident and eager. Each with our own cans/jars/boxes of worms, we would pick our individual spots on the river bank. Great planning went into selecting our location, and as typical 8 to 14 year olds, we all felt as if we knew all of the ins and outs of why the fish would be where and how to best catch them. They liked overhanging or submerged branches, the deep side of a river bend, down stream side of a boulder – yes we were self-proclaimed pros. Well, semi-pros – we lost a lot of worms and hooks and caught our share of overhead branches with errant casts, We might split up with some on the east bank and some on the west bank, but always the smaller kids had to be near a bigger kid – in our minds because the youngsters couldn’t get the worm on the hook or the fish off of it. Occasionally some Elm Street or Main street kids would try to crowd in on our turf, and a few grownups might pass by but they would move further up stream where our commotion wouldn’t spook the trout. We actually did catch a few fish over the years, and although I remember trying my hand at gutting and de-boning, I was fairly content to let Dad do it. Mom would cook it but wanted not part it gutting them first – if we expected her to clean fish, she expected we would NOT fish. I suspect that was a major reason we quit fishing – not because we got old enough to need to buy a license.