Spring trout fishing on PEI

The first day. Always a first day in these important matters of fishing among good friends and with fine waters. Not that this island is the ultimate in a purists adventure into a rushing arctic river. Nor the first place that line was cast as a child with father along the streams of youth...but a new place of great streams and wonderful new memories that stir the most from a deep almost deserted memory. Opening day of trout here was snowy and cold. As a young man, I only remember one day of fishing the Eastern chars, or brook tout in the high plateaus of the Allegheny that I recall snow falling as we removed the natural artworks called brook trout. These fish are natures jewels. Dark above and dotted with crimson and blue, white edged fins and creamy flanks...golden bellies. These are the trout caught here that have not yet been to sea. They are pure pleasure in the pursuit and eager hungry as the spring thaw awakens and all of us collective awaken to a spring leading to the summer sun. I never really expected that. In the memory of youth it was a time of great awakening and expectation. Rods brought out. Plans made. The early morning trip away to meet the streams and brooks...the air, racing clouds and chilling air ...bird song along places of youthful expectation. The winter is long at this latitude. It is far from the streams of the Arizona rim, later, and in most ways father still from the mountains and cold limestone valleys of the Cumberland gap of my youth. But it is trout fishing the same only modified by the geography and those who cast the line with me here. For those who do not understand that, or those whose memories are yet clouded by the unimportant or memories forgotten I can only say that it is as a wedding should be. The great expectations, hopes, and wishes of a powerful meaningful summer among all that can be profound and important at a time or renewal. The fish are a bit small, but the fill the pan well, dusted in flour and fried golden and a meal that means spring is here. Perhaps I should have fished elsewhere. My father is long a memory. We fished the streams of home and it remains a most important place of memory. Here we go out just a few miles from home here along along the Northumberland strait to fish. Not hours, but minutes to streams that hold many fish. That is why I remained and now that is why I remain. Pain of loss and suffering reduced to total simplicity. We will fish bait now and early here in the West, and as the water warms the flies will take trout...the sea run fish..will return. Larger and silvery from the time away , the meat pink and succulent from their salty foraging we will take some for the BBQ and release the rest. The odd salmon will visit but must be released. There is no finer past-time. Issac Walton observed that the simplicity and solitude of the stream and trout was a renewal of the soul. So be it. Time passed rather poorly against an amazing winter. A winter even these hardy souls said that they had not seen in years. Snow and gale. Snow and gale. Day after day along the shore buried in feet and feet of unmelting white. But the rain came and we went fishing. I met a lady. A true flower of a woman. Beautiful and fragile to intrude on my solitude. She is remarkable in that she distracts me from the brook. It has not been so for many seasons and I have been chided as a romantic. Again. Today was too windy and cold to go back to the Bradshaw and catch more trout. I caught 5 brookies Friday, my friends caught a few too. We returned to town and immediately cleaned and cooked the fished...still we were chilled to the core but it was the finest trout feast that I had had since long before. It has taken more than one winter for me to be able to grasp a new horizon. And the sun that rose from that horizon is the sun that breaks to pink clouds. The kind of sunrise portending a new adventure among people prior foreign, now friends. I changed my field boots and layers to evening wear and went out among those in my hometown. The strong Canadian beer flowed and the dance went along. Separated by only a thread we dance as family and laugh among the last remaining shadowed piles of snow. I remain in my Elba. Surely I miss fishing with my old pals and my son...even my father passed over 40 years ago. But all the souls are present. I remain here to fish, and coordinate that which must be written. All that is ones life is that which is a memory...the material passes away and rots as the last fall leaves are now gone...but the odour remains in the heart of that when one rakes and jumps into the leaf pile with children. It remains but is actually gone back into the damp red island soil.

Trout Season on Prince Edward Island

Many years have past since I actually went out on a cold spring morning to observe this rite of spring. In fact, I cannot remember the last time. Year after year I had planned this event with my son in Pennsylvania. I think we last came close in the spring of 2007 at Clark's Creek just before my ever-predictable return to this island.

I attended a friends funeral here on the Tuesday before our fishing season started. My friend Lloyd from our local legion was 74, and a well know local fiddler. We would sit and chat about mostly religion among the artifacts of war drinking draft Canadian beer. While Mary and I were in church on maundy Thursday, Lloyds wife Shirley waited and Lloyd never came to church where she was to meet him. She found him dead on the living room sofa, after returning home concerned. Lloyd was never late for mass at St. Paul's.

The funeral was the Catholic rite of internment and a high mass. It was nice to attend the sacraments again, but I will miss my friend. The tears welled with memories of past losses of all kinds, and thoughts of the future losses to come. Now I feel part of the town. I had been to such events before, but not for someone that I knew well. The funeral included fiddling and I felt close to home, somewhere west of Harrisburg, in a mountain halla or maybe at the Oriental Hotel in Juniata county.

Those events set the stage for trout season here. The dark calm morning was icy cold with some snow on the ground and calm winds. I left at 5 AM as the season begins at 6:00. The selected spot a few miles East of Summerside on the upper Wilmot River, near an place called Marshbank's pond. The Wilmont empties into the sea about 4 miles below my spot and is straight and wild as it mixes into the salt of Summerside harbour. I could barely see, but parked by a bridge and walked down to the small stream. It was clear with a brownish bottom and some debris. The spot reminds me of the Yellow Breeches near New Cumberland. It isn't all that wild at that point, there are summer cabins and trailers, reminiscent of the rest of Appalachia.

A few cold bodies waited nearby as the crescent moon dropped lower opposite the planet Mercury in a bright frigid azure sky, Mercury shining as the morning star afore the rising sun. The folks spoke in muffled tones of how good the river is, and how they had caught big sea-run trout here over the years. We all cast (all 4 of us) at 6 AM and waited as the sun stubbornly climbed and our toes numbed. The young fellow with his brother and grandma across from me caught a small trout about 6:15. Ice formed on my rod tippet as the line was retrieved. I cast and drifted bait for 2 hours and with no fish, then sat in the Blazer and recorded in my audio diary.

The water is simply too cold, and most trout arrive here later in the spring. Later, I fished the nearby pond with no results. I don't feel too bad-that one trout was the only one caught that I witnessed.

One thing I found odd was that the island has no "non-resident" fishing licence. We all pay 30 bucks, unless we want to fish for salmon and pay an extra fee. All salmon fishing here is catch and release.

I also realized in my hasty departure from Pennsylvania, I left my small lure box in my son's car. I also have his rod and vest. So I will probably move from bait fishing to fly-rod as the weather warms, unless I get a few spinning lures here.

This day after the season opener is cold and breezy and bright. The air will remain cool another month or longer until the surrounding icy sea warms from the strengthening spring sunshine. I have many other streams here and ponds to explore. But it just isn't home nor the same without my boy along. I just have to pretend that I am that teenager that I was with my first car, before my first girl was in my life-driving around with my rod looking for meaning in a stream or on the rural roads.

I admit to being a bit homesick at this time of year. But I will probably remain on the island a
while this time. Life is easier to deal with here for me. But I miss my family and the pain remains vivid of yet another futile attempt to be with family and haunts. So as the lonely roving fisherman of the Pennsylvania back-roads found in the 1970's, I will find here places that can fill the void, maybe catch a fish and kiss a girl-attend the mass, and try to make sense of the issues of the day, both mine and the desperate pursuits that drive the people in the real world-far from this place. Far from my island. The rite of spring, a rite of life.