First Fish of 2020: Last-light, tiny Stocked Trout

This fish might not look like much, and by all accounts, it isn’t. It’s a small brown trout that the state stocked in Nine Mile Creek, about an hour from where I live in Upstate New York. I did some research before heading out, and it turns out the state tells you how many fish they stock, and where, if you’re interested. As you can tell, Nine Mile gets more trout than most places, so I decided to give it a try.

I’ve never been much of a trout fisherman, truth be told, although there’s some tremendous trout water right around where I grew up. Our early April outings were usually, as kids, a desperate attempt to escape the mind-numbing cabin fever that had set in by the time trout season finally opened (sound familiar, my housebound brethren)? We were happy to be outside doing anything that wasn’t snow-related. In Upstate New York, April 1 isn’t necessarily the end of winter, per se. I can remember a few years when we didn’t have at least one April snowstorm, but there aren’t many. So, although in other parts of the country the month might be a 30-day segue into summer, around here it feels more like a month where you wait, and hold your breath for winter’s last punch.

I don’t have anything against trout, mind you. It’s just that, by the time we could realistically target them, I was so focused on getting ready to take a shot at striped bass on Cape Cod vacations, or chase largemouth bass from a pond prowler in local ponds, that they were kind of an afterthought for me.

I have friends, and cousins (like Chris Crittelli, pictured to the left) who are much better trout fishermen than I’ll ever be.

That’s not to say that I’m dismissing the species altogether. If anything, the behavior of larger, wild trout seemed so intimidating to me that I never thought I could realistically dial in the fishery with much success (and I certainly haven’t yet). I’ve read (almost) every book and story that John Gierach has ever written, and there are a slew of similarly intelligent, talented fishermen who have waxed poetic about trout. I have had the chance to fish with a few anglers, like Matt Wettish, who are masters at catching gigantic browns in Connecticut.

But on Nine Mile Creek this past week I discovered something about trout fishing that I’d forgotten. On a pond or lake, you’re probably moving around looking for structure that’s likely to hold bass. Cast under a dock, or a weedline enough times without success, and it stands to reason there aren’t a ton of fish holding there (or feeding ones, anyway). On a trout stream, like in the surf, the water is always moving, so it’s possible, at any given moment, your quarry might just come to you. And to stand in a body of water that is changing around you by the minute, presenting new opportunity where none existed only a few casts ago, is kind of an exciting thing.

Now, yes — those larger trout will likely be holding, like bass, in deeper pools, and around structure. But if you’re a novice enough trout fisherman to be excited with a small stockie like the one pictured above, then every new hour presents, at the very least, possibility.

I realized two things while holding the small (alright, tiny) trout for a photo before releasing it: 1. I have a lot to learn about targeting and catching a species that my home state is famous for and that 2. If the circumstances are right, and you were going stir crazy enough between reading about mortality rates (my heart goes out if you or a loved one are fighting this #@$%ing disease), washing your hands, and putting on a hazmat suite to get orange juice, then even one, very small stocked trout can make you feel as jubilant as a kid again on an April afternoon.

And if there’s one reason that we’ve kept at this sport well into adulthood, it’s because the feeling, that feeling, hasn’t changed all that much since those first few fish, even if — especially now — almost everything else has.

Social Distancing, Roads and Rivers

“There are people in my life who sometimes worry about me when I go off into the fields and streams, not realizing that the country is a calm, gracious, forgiving place and that the real dangers are found in the civilization you have to pass through to get there.” – John Gierach

When you turn on the television, there’s incessant updates: A news line runs along the bottom of local channels updating you on death counts, hotlines for people who suspect that they’re infected, and warnings about not leaving your home for anything but necessities.

The government is scrambling, taking unprecedented measures, in an attempt to help the millions of recently unemployed Americans looking for answers. Restaurants are closing, or offering takeout only, and in places like the Post Office, there are shoe-shaped stickers on the floor showing customers how far apart they should stand.

You’d feel ridiculous wearing a face mask and gloves to get orange juice, soda, peanut butter and bread, except for the fact that everyone else is, too.

And whenever you start thinking that these are stressful times, and you can’t wait until they’re over, you just think: “Thank God the people I love are okay…”

And if there were ever a time when a stream, river, pond or beach offered a welcome escape from the stress of everyday life to a greater degree than it does during this Coronavirus epidemic, I haven’t lived through it.

The photo above is from the Moose River between Otter Lake, and Thendara, New York, taken a week ago, today.

The trout weren’t cooperating (or, more likely, since I’ve never fished the Moose before this year, I was working the wrong stretch), but I can remember few times in my life when it felt better to just cast into moving water.

Perhaps it’s because the post office, grocery store, supermarket, and highways are either empty or sparsely populated with terrified neighbors, and it’s a disconcerting reminder of our global predicament.

But an empty trout stream looks exactly as it’s supposed to: It’s the one thing that still feels normal, right now.

I want you to know that if you’re behind a glass barricade so that we can get our groceries, if you’re working in an ambulance, at a police office, a post office or a restaurant so we can maintain some semblance of normality in our own lives, I’m grateful for you and saying a prayer for you.

And if you’re on the water, whether it’s after trout, those first migratory stripers that will be showing up in New Jersey, pike, pickerel or panfish,  I hope that you have more luck than I did this past week, and I hope you’re reminded that being a fisherman is a gift, a truth that is perhaps more evident now than it ever has been in the past.