2010 Trout Opener - Darby Creek

Oh, how I love the opening day of trout season.  Hanging out with good friends, ridiculously easy to catch stockies, and the crowds and hi-jinks of the other "anglers," the combination of the 3 always make for a great time.

I was meeting up with three of my oldest friends, Wright, Len, & Mostel.  Of the three, Mostel is the biggest outdoorsman; he puts John Muir to shame.  Well, maybe not exactly that outdoorsy, but you get the point.  Got the text message from Mostel that he was at our hole at Darby Creek reserving a spot on the bank at 5:30 AM.  Atta Boy!  I rolled in a little after 6 AM, and Wright & Len arrived a little after 7 AM.

Len (foreground), Wright (background)

Mostel - The dude has a Barred Owl call as his "ringtone"

Around 7:45 AM (you can start fishing at 8 AM) the latecomer clowns that always crowd your group and cross your lines came rumbling through the woods and decided to wade right across one of the pools.  Nice job idiots.

Outta the pool d-bag!

There should be some sort of outdoors etiquette test you take before being issued a fishing license.  We wanted to wing the can of corn at them, but decided not to for some reason.  They were lucky this time.  They'll get niblets across the forehead next time.

Can o' Corn - Unfortunately never got used

Well 8 AM came - I was tossing a gold spinner, the others were using wax worms - and I was lucky enough to bring in the first trout of the morning (on my first cast).  Mostel followed suit a few minutes later and the two of us were at our limits in no time.  I actually caught 5 trout on my first 5 casts - although not all were keepers.

Typical catch of the day

I'll spare you the rest of the stocked trout stories, but the highlight of the morning (besides watching Wright wade across the creek in flip flops) was when Mostel caught the largest fish from the pool.  I actually had sighted the fish about 15 minutes prior when it chased but didn't hit my spinner.  Len & I demanded that Mostel use his skills and catch it...and wouldn't you know he did!  Although the picture doesn't do it justice had to be about 20" minimum.  Everybody let out a nice cheer when he brought it to net.  Good job buddy.

Mostel's Pig

In the end we probably caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 or 30 trout out of the pool we fished - a mix of rainbows and browns - and let go about two-thirds of them.  Sure, in some aspects the fishing was like taking candy from a baby, but opening day is the one day I put aside my preference for wild trout - fishing for stockies and making memories with good friends was awfully fun.