Trout Opening Day:
fish jump out of water
and onto stringers

It's 5 a.m. and my toes are starting to freeze. I needed two lanterns to find and secure a spot on this opening night for the 2011 trout opening day in Southeastern Pennsylvania. So now my two kerosene lanterns become a pair of foot warmers because I've already been lakeside for hours and the wool socks just weren't enough. I take off my boots and lay my frozen tootsies on the hot lantern chimneys. Now I can wait for the a.m. at 8 with warm feet.

Trout opening day is all about securing your spot on your chosen piece of water. Ours -- meaning me, Catfish Tony, and Big Daddy G. -- was on the bank of Antietam Lake, a former reservoir a few miles northeast of Reading, PA. It's a small lake and always crowded on trout opening day. Overall, it's a favorite local spot all season. The fish commission stocks it with trout, you can catch sunfish and bluegills during the warm months, guys ice fish on it regularly, and there must be bass in it because it looks bassy. Today, however, the targets are the brown and brook trout that I can hear in the blackness breaking the surface here and there.

When I got here, it was a beautiful starry night with the Big Dipper dominating the sky, but now dawn has broken and you can see who is here. You can also see who is not here, that being Catfish Tony and Big Daddy G., but that's OK because they are not supposed to be here until just before 8. The spot has been saved, with just enough room for three fisherman to stand shoulder to shoulder in keeping with that great trout opening day tradition of being able to smell the armpit of the guy next to you. As it was getting lighter I could see more fishermen, including girls and boys, arriving and I started to wonder how many crossed lines I would see. As it turned out there was only one, with an errant cast from a group on our right crossing over Catfish Tony's line. I happen to glance down now and notice that during the night frost has accumulated on my two rods.

Trout opening day typically is a blinding experience. After the bell rings, things happen so fast compared to regular fishing that there's a lot that you miss. On this day there certainly wasn't going to be time to see small things like frost on the rods, as it turned out. Catfish Tony and Big Daddy G. appeared with some much-needed coffee and we got ready for battle. I hooked an orange Berkley Powerbait with a pair of split shot set around two feet from the end. Catfish Tony and Big Daddy G. speared night crawlers I think and likewise set up to fish the bottom. All around the lake fishermen held their baited rods aloft, pointing them over the lake at 45 degree angles, like an army of medieval warriors with their lances.

A cheer went up and our casts went out.

The next hour was a fishing nirvana about which I don't remember too many of the details. The first hook-up order went: Big Daddy G. first, then Catfish Tony and then me. After that, I'm really not sure what happened other than hauling in brook trout, one after the other. We all had our limits of five each, all brook trout in the 12-inch range, in less than an hour. By Catfish Tony's count,(again, things were happening quickly even though he was standing right next to me), he alone had caught and released another 40 trout. We caught 'em on powerbait, night crawlers, earthworms, redtail chubs, spinnerbaits, Rappla sinking lures. After a while, Catfish Tony just went with the spinnerbait and was catching brook trout on every other cast. That I saw!

When it was apparent that the fish had given up, Big Daddy G. declared, "Breakfast is on me."

He didn't need to say it again. We picked up our stringers, and I swear since they were empty only moments ago, I kinda do think a couple of those fish just swam up and strung themselves.

We strained at the weight as we climbed the steep bank in the final precious moments of this trout opening, just in time to see two late-arriving fathers with their sons. We gave them our spot and I later heard they did just fine.

As we walked back to the car and to breakfast, around the lake somewhere I thought I heard someone whisper, "Who were those guys?"