Preparations are underway for the opening of Pennsylvania's trout season this Saturday.
Stellitano has more than tripled his order of fathead minnows and shiners, and has been working since last week, counting and hand-packing tens of thousands of waxworms, mealworms, maggots, redworms and crawlers.
"It's the tradition," he said.
Can you feel the excitement building?
It's been a long time since I've fished worms for trout, but procuring worms for the trout opener, (and for the pursuit of Swamp Things as the season progressed) was an important stage in prepartion for the big day. Sometimes I did it the lazy way. On the last Friday in April, just before the trout opener, I would have Mom or Dad drive me to Sportman's Headquarter's to buy a couple dozen nightcrawlers. Sportman's HQ was the nearest bait shop to our house, and shopping there was something of an adventure in itself. The store was in the basement of a large home in a blighted section of Kalamzoo's north side. If my mother drove me, she would wait outside with the car doors locked and the engine running while I went in for the worms. At the bottom of the creakng stairs I entered a small, mildewy-smelling room lit by a few bare bulbs. Arrayed along the walls was a stock of dusty, obsolete tackle that probably had been there since the store opened. If the owner made any money at all, he made it off bait and small items like hooks, swivels, and such. The Kalamazoo river, with its celebrated if toxic carp fishery, was a few blocks away. The sign for the shop featured a leaping rainbow trout, though there were none of those to be caught within forty miles.
Usually I would gather worms myself. On rainy nights in early spring, I would prowl the backyard with a flashlight in hand plucking up nightcrawlers. I came to respect the speed and the strength of these worms. While hunting them, I carried my flashlight in one hand and a coffee can for holding those I'd caught in the other. I had to set down the coffee can to grab one, and I learned quickly that if I set it down too roughly, the worm would shoot down its hole before I could lay a finger on it. They would vanish too if I reached slowly for one, or held my flashlight on one for too long before I struck. If I grabbed one that was less than halfway out of its hole (or reached too slowly for one all the way out), I would find myself in a tug of war that I could only win by patience. If I pulled too hard, the worm would break in half. But if I just held onto it, in a minute or so it would relax and slide easily out of its hole. When I was in high school and began learning about food loops in biology class, I started to think of catching the worms in terms of transfers of energy. My strength would capture that of the worm; by fishing I would direct that energy, placing the worm where it could wiggle before a trout; I would feel the strength of the trout on the end of my line, and then I would eat the trout to start to renew my own strength. That's missing a few links in the chain, of course (notably the one where I nourish the worms), but the logic was quite satisfying to me at the time.
After collecting a couple dozen worms, I would return to the house with my hands, flashlight, and worm can caked with mud. I think my mother preferred taking her chances driving me to Sportsman's HQ.
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I think my father would be scandalized if he learned the origin of his favorite fishing lure:
Almost every serious angler knows about the Heddon Zara Spook, one of the top 10 artificial lures of all time and still a standby after 80 years. But did you ever wonder how it got its name?
The original wood version, the Zaragossa, was made in the 1920s for fishing in Florida. After watching a prototype lure zigzag across the water in a test tank, a Heddon worker remarked that it wiggled its butt just like the hookers on Zaragoza Street in Panama City.
Just part of the fishing heritage preserved by curators of the National Heddon Museum in Dowagiac, Michigan.
Tags: Fishing; Spring
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