So much about our Opening Day tradition has changed since I
first joined my uncle more than 20 years ago. The location, the duration, the
crew, even the fishing regulations—they all evolved over time. In the
early years we stayed on a state-owned property along the river with dozens
of others for one wild night before the third Saturday of April. With that site
long since shut down, we now stay on a private piece of land miles from the
river with a small and seasoned group for three memorable nights. We have added
on days, lost a crucial participant, and gained others. Virtually the entire
river is now open to fishing before Opening Day. The State even moved trout
season up a week, yet there was no question within our group about whether or not to stick with the traditional weekend.
But the more things change, the more they stay the same. The
gathering of friends. The reunion around the camp fire. The celebration of
spring. The serenade of peeper frogs. The patter of rain on the tent. The smell
of wood smoke. The morning dew on the rain fly. The hum of the Northstar
lanterns. The swilling of whiskey in camp chairs. The fire-cooked steaks. The waders
drying on Russian Olives. The rigging of fly rods on tailgates. The whittling
of walking sticks. The cigars on the riverbank. The prepping of cheese spreads with
grandfather’s KA-BAR. The crackling of the late night fire. The chill when you
step away from it. The rehashing of stories I’ve heard for years. I’m thankful
those things haven’t changed.
When I first started going on this trip, the weekend was
something I circled on the calendar months in advance. When that Friday morning
finally came, I’d wait by the front door for my uncle’s red Mitsubishi Mighty
Max pickup to pull in the driveway. My pile of gear was pathetic—pretty much everything
I used was loaned to me from fishing rods to sleeping bags. As we drove north
on Route 8, we may as well have been on a logging road in the Moosehead region. We were
so unplugged from the real world. It was so different than what my friends were
doing back home. For better or worse, those trips exposed me to food,
language, behavior, and fishing techniques that a Connecticut kid in the 90’s would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.
Now with over two decades of Opening Day weekends in the
books, inside I’m still that excited kid making mental notes of the trip months
in advance. While the world got a lot smaller since those first years, in a way
it still feels like I’m cut off from the rest of civilization when I’m in the
woods for those three nights. A temporary reprieve from responsibilities at home
and in the office. And we’ll keep going that third weekend in April so long as
we are physically able to do so. Carrying that Opening Day torch and passing it
on to our children and their children along the way. It’s tradition after all.
.jpg)
