There used to be an Opening Day of Trout Season and it was the equivalent of a Barnum & Bailey Circus coming to town. Men, women, and children headed for the mountains to try and catch a few of the hundreds of thousands of trout that had been stocked and were now hungry enough to eat raw worms.
I have been a participant of lots of Opening Days during my fishing career, but one stands out.
It was April 1, 1962. Yours truly, Bill Shaver, Mike Dawson, and Dave Gladwell – the Four Amigos from Lewisburg, WV – got permission to take Mike’s station wagon to Anthony’s Creek where we would camp beside the stream and be up and at ‘em at 6 AM, when the season officially got underway.
But there was alcohol involved.
Mike, Bill and I bought a six-pack of Carlings Black Label beer, but Dave decided to go for the hard stuff. Somebody had bought him a pint of Seagram’s Seven, which he began sipping on the ride to the campground.
To say we were not big drinkers was an understatement. Dave and I each weighed about 125 pounds soaking wet and didn’t have a lot of blubber to absorb the alcohol. By the time we pulled into the campground, Dave had finished a good bit of the whiskey was feeling no pain. An hour later and he couldn’t walk without assistance. An hour later and he was rolling around on the ground, vomiting as he went. Bill and Mike looked at Dave and determined that he was lost for life and would probably soon be selling pencils on the corner of Washington Street to raise money for his liquor habit. They poured their beers out and swore off the Devil’s Juice forever. I kept and drank my two beers, and they were quite tasty, though I did get a little buzz going.
Dave threw up pretty much all night, so we tossed a blanket on him and made him sleep outside. The next morning at first light, the three non-hungover fishermen were on the banks of the stream, spinning rods in hand affixed with Mepp’s Spinners. We were supposed to wait until six, but we saw someone break the ice five minutes early and we cast as well.
Wouldn’t you know that both Bill and I immediately hooked a fish with our early casts and had trout flopping all over the surface. We were the first to have fish on and it still wasn’t 6 AM.
I could see the warden handcuffing us and leading us off to the pokey, but soon, everyone threw in and everyone was catching fish. Dave waddled down to the stream an hour or so later, much worse for the wear, and asked why we didn’t waken him.
We thought he was dead and deserved eternal peace. He had quite a hangover that day and I don’t recall that he ever had another drink of Seagram’s Seven.
There is a lesson to be learned here, but I’m not sure what. Maybe be sure there are no wardens around if you make a early cast on Opening Day.