The author fishing his favorite Double Eddy Hole. Courtesy photo.
By Milton F. Whitmore
It’s only a day on the calendar. It varies from year to year. No clue is offered as to any wizardry or magical properties, yet The Last Saturday in April conjures up a feast of telling tales, of an almost mystical aura that belies its status as merely the sixth day of the last week of a spring month.
What property does The Last Saturday in April possess that makes it rise to a pantheon level? In Michigan, this date marks the Opening Day of the state’s upland trout season. Only dedicated, devoted trout anglers can understand what this means. Of course, some streams are open for trout angling all year. Some open in early April as part of the steelhead (migratory rainbow trout) spawn, which takes the fish to the upper reaches of certain rivers.
I am speaking of smaller upland creeks and rivers closed to the pursuit of brown, rainbow and brook trout until almost the end of the fourth month of the year.
Looking back at some of my Opening Day journal reports, I found this one from 2004: “Opening morning found me, once again, parking my truck in the ebony black of predawn at my familiar spot along a well-worn 2-track leading to my favorite trout stream. In ritual-like fashion I donned my waders, trout vest, net, bait box and hat. Every trout angler of note has a “hat,” well-worn and seasoned by many years of use on a stream.”
For years I’ve gone through this ritual on the magical Last Saturday in April. The process has become almost ceremonial, akin to entering Holy Orders. I do it in a quiet reverence, for I understand that I am about to enter the verdant waters of an outdoor cathedral.
Following the strong beam of a mini-mag flashlight, I carefully make my way in the blackness, through aspen-adorned uplands, down into the cedar swamp and tag alders, finally arriving at my hole well before the first light of day.
I usually fish the tail end of the hole in the early hours. The hole is formed by the river’s narrowing, squeezed by the remains of a long washed-out bridge or dam, no doubt from the days of timber drives on the river. The current tumbles in a rush through the gap and spills out below, the curls of twin eddies lapping either bank.
The water spills from the depths of the hole at a half bend, and it is at this spot that I wade along, keeping quiet, until I find a comfortable spot to sit, feet in the water, against the steep, 3-foot-tall grassy bank that makes a comfortable backrest. It is from this spot that I’ve taken untold numbers of trout, mainly browns, over the 10 years that I’ve been fishing the hole.
In the predawn darkness of an Opening Day, I was on a trout stream listening to the calls of geese waking themselves from their nocturnal rest. I perked my ear swamp-ward as the haunting “tee-dee” of a bird I’ve always called “The Lonely Bird” wafted into the air, greeting a new day.
I love trout fishing because I love the places where trout live.
Milton Whitmore writes from Arcadia, where he lives with his wife and their four-legged companion.
