Anglers for centuries have touted the sporting value of trout fishing. But what is it that makes thousands of anglers like you and me dream all winter about catching these lake and river game fish? Why would any sane person count down the days to the trout opener?

Does Size Matter?

Why are 10-inch trout prizes to be cherished? Why should people spend good money to buy fine fly-fishing tackle just to catch a small trout? Or, on the other hand, why would anglers gloat over a 10-pound brown trout or a 14-pound steelhead?

What is it about this game fish that stirs our piscatorial juices, captures our thoughts and engages our soul on a day like this? It’s just an eternal question that trout anglers try to rationalize as they tour Michigan’s greatest trout lakes and streams.

What follows are just a few of today’s idle thoughts that have made me wonder about my addictive 60-year trout-fishing career. There are thoughts a-plenty from trout seasons I’ve covered since the early 1950s.

Idle Thoughts, Deep Waters

Think long and hard on trout, and make a list of some of your favorite trout fishing memories. One often will find that these experiences, sights, sounds, and other sensory perceptions are far more important to us at day’s end than the fish we’ve caught. Here are just a handful of why trout captured my soul over a half-century ago.

• These beautiful, colorful and fragile game fish are the canaries in our environmental coal mine. They are a key barometer of our times. What harms trout can’t be good for humans, and when these grand species are gone forever, can the end of our civilization be very far behind?

• Brook trout are the prettiest of all. They come in four sizes: tiny, small, legal-size and lunker, each with an array of spotted beauty that hints of wild places that stir our senses. With their tiny blue spots, and white piping along the outside edge of orange fins, brook trout take first-place in any fishy beauty pageant. I look at a trout, all smooth-skinned, and painted up in all their finery, and it takes my breath away.

• Trout respond well to a careful approach and a delicate delivery. Fancy waders and top-of-the-line fly rods, reels and nets do not impress this char and trout clan. They feed when hungry, fast when not, and nothing we do can or will change this pattern.

• Trout inhabit some of the world’s most beautiful places. They live in a land of towering pine and spruce, beaver ponds, impenetrable cedar swamps, sparkling streams, gurgling meadow brooks, remote Upper Peninsula rivers dotted with waterfalls, high mountain lakes — all such places and others are home to lake and stream trout, and humans are nothing more than infrequent visitors to their world.

  As such, it behooves anglers to put back more than we take. Conservation of wild trout means joining and backing such organizations as Trout Unlimited, who fight for our fish and their special environment. Their needs include clean water and an environment friendly to the fish. They are truly game fish worth fighting for.

• I fish because of soft dimpling rises, blanket hatches, selective trout, wild places, stream-side camaraderie with other like-minded fishermen, wild fish and the history and romance of trout fishing. Trying to outwit these game fish is for the thinking angler, not the gluttonous fisherman intent only on a full creel.

• One of the last and untapped world-wide trout bastions are the inland lakes. Such waters produce robust fish, and for those who learn lake-fishing secrets, the rewards are many. Huge trout are taken from inland lakes that seldom, if ever, see a bait, fly or lure. These lake-dwelling trout are a thrill to catch, and it requires a heap of specialized skills to do so.

• My familiarity with trout forces me to fight for them and to proceed in a manner that gives each fish every advantage and opportunity to escape. Trout fishing means much more than a limit catch. This sport is and always should be a major challenge. The greater the challenge, the great the reward when we catch one.

• Seldom are trout kept. Trout deserve to be caught more than once, and on occasion I will keep a few small ones for the frying pan. My thoughts are that big trout should be allowed to spawn and reproduce, and small ones should be released as gently as possible to avoid harming them.

• There are places where brook trout live that rarely see a fisherman. The fish are naïve, easily caught, and some anglers take advantage of this trait. Often, in such areas, the spot may be over-fished in one day by one greedy angler. Catching a limit, day after day, doesn’t prove someone a good fisherman. Instead, it points out what might be considered a serious character flaw.

• For years it’s been my practice to fish those back-of-beyond spots where brook trout hold at the base of a cedar tree. Such black swamps with brownish tannic-acid water have produced numerous sightings of bear and deer as I slip slowly from tree to tree, dapping a fly or single-hook wee spinner in the water between tree roots. The fish come hard to fly or lure, are easily hooked, and quickly released without taking them from the water.

• I have a problem with those anglers who regard trout fishing as a social event. The fish are not impressed by the size of our homes or the cost of our cars, so why clutter a stream with people who are there only to impress clients or other fishermen with fancy creels, fly rods and vests filled to overflowing? My thought is to leave such people in my dust as I continue my solitary search for solitude.

• People go through three trout fishing phases. The first is to catch as many fish as possible; the second is to catch the largest trout of all; the third is to exact a challenge from trout and tackle while giving the fish every chance to get away.

• I’m in Stage No. 3, but can remember as a kid passing through stages 1 and 2. It’s easy to remember the heavy catches, huge fish and the bragging of yesteryear, and I’m ashamed by the number of big trout taken during my earlier years. But those days are long gone, and my efforts now out-weigh my heavy catches of 30-40 years ago.

• For 10 years, guiding trout fishermen was my life and the major way to make a living. The hours were long and hard, the weather sometimes bitterly cold, and although memories of those days with large numbers of browns and steelhead still linger, they foster no strong feelings of returning to that way of life. It was a tough way to make a living, pay bills and put cooked groceries on the table.

• I fish for trout now because I want to, not to prove anything to myself or to others. I fish because of the tremendous enjoyment it brings me, and the challenge of hooking trout from difficult places with tackle that gives every edge to these fish.
  
  
• I now fish for trout because fishing soothes a troubled soul. It energizes tired fishermen, and it provides me with something I deeply love and something to look forward to in beautiful areas where it’s not necessary to rub shoulders with other anglers. It offers me peace and tranquility in a world of turmoil and unpleasantness.

Simple, Wild & Free

That’s me. A guy with simple ideals and needs that continue to make me very happy. And just think: an eight-inch brook trout can make me giddy for weeks on end. No amount of money, big house or fancy ride, can do the same.

Cold running water, wild places and wild fish, are why trout make me feel good in a way I’ve tried to explain but I still find it difficult to express myself any better than this. So, if you’ll excuse me now, I’ve got a date with a trout.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors