Trout Fishing

Today the redneck in me rejoiced. It was opening day of trout season in PA. My brother, Nathan, lives right near the white clay creek in Landenberg Pennsylvania, which is a nice little historic town. (Yes that sentence was composed mostly to get more hits on google.) I stayed over at Nathan’s house last night (which was really fun) then got up at the butt crack of dawn today. You know, I think that no self respecting, decent human being should ever get up before 9:30 on a Saturday, but I had to honor tradition. Also, I smelled bacon cooking.

At a few minutes past seven Nathan, my Dad, and I all hiked down to the stream. It used to be more of a whole family activity, but Shane decided to become a geek/genius and go compete in the state level of National History day (he won 2nd place) and Collin, who is in the bondage of slavery, and had to work for his masters all day.

Once I got past the fact that my whole body was shivering, I noticed that it was a very beautiful day! There is nothing quite like fishing in a stream early in the morning when the sun is just starting to crawl over the hills and sparkle on the water. Nothing quite like feeling the first hit, catching your first fish of the year. Nothing quite like the sound of water mixed with song birds claiming their territory. Nothing quite like the sound of dozens of frustrated fishermen trying in vain to mark their territory, tangling up their lines and, and missing their trout. Nothing quite like snagging rocks, filling up water proof boots with mud, and fishing for hours to catch one trout.

After several hours of fishing we each had one. That sucks. Nobody was catching anything anywhere in the creek. We decided that it was time to call it a morning. Feeling like crappy fisherman, Nathan and I did the most humbling thing a fisherman can do. "Let's go to Nottingham and catch sunnies " I proposed, half joking, half testing the waters. "I'll go it you'll go." That was it. We packed up our gear, murdered and buried our pride right then and there, and headed to Nottingham.

You have to realize something. Nottingham is where little kids who can't zip their own flies go to catch fish. We walked up to a pond, plopped down on a bench, pulled out our rods professionally equipped with bobbers and worms, and started fishing Norman Rockwell style. An hour and a half later I had caught one fish, a sunny no longer than an inch and a half.

The redneck in me is humiliated, but I had a fun day.