For most of my life, the first day of April was a special day.
It was not just because Spring was so close you could smell it. I mean that literally; in Winter there are no smells outdoors—with the possible exception of woodsmoke from someone’s chimney—but, by April, our noses begin to detect signs of life in the outside world. We begin to think our protruding probosci were intended to serve some purpose other than frostbite indicators and supporters of the Kleenex industry.
No.
Around here, April First is the opening day of trout season. For many of us, the day has always been observed as a religious holiday. As the big day approached, I used to call my friend’s office, leaving a message with his secretary, that he had an urgent call from Sal Motrutta. Not that he needed any reminding.
Salmo trutta is the scientific name for Brown Trout.
I’ve often pointed out that it’s no coincidence that trout season opens on April Fool’s Day. Cold water—and the absence of emerging mayflies, caddis, and stoneflies—means that no matter how desperately one wants to float a dry fly across a likely pool—no sensible trout would even dream of looking up.
There was another reason for celebrating on April First. It was the official beginning of Mendacity Season. Fool’s day pranks were the opening salvo of an entire season of lies. Anglers are as famous for their ability to perjure themselves as career politicians.
Or writers.
That I have gone on in hopes of making a career of dishonesty—as a freelance fabricator of fiction—merely proves that the skills I learned as a fisherman are beginning to bear fruit. An addiction to alliteration (and mixed metaphor) suggests I have a long (and probably unprofitable) journey ahead of me.
Still, it is April First and it’s only fitting that we observe the holiday. Not by standing for eight hours in a semi-frozen stream, of course. I’m too old to want to do what I always did on this date, but by sharing an old lie—a falsehood once foisted on a particularly gullible friend of the female persuasion.
It was unrepentantly repeated in The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions.
Trout and Deer
In the centuries before Europeans arrived in the New World, the trout were practically unmolested. Untroubled by hordes of weekend flyfishers (armed with the latest in weaponry by the great white father they called “Orvis”), the trout grew to immense size. Minnows and insects were insufficient fare for such leviathans—they craved red meat. Oh, occasionally they would grab a wolf or cougar (you will note, I’m sure, the fact that these predator species are beginning to make a comeback after yuppie fascination with fly-fishing reduced the trout populations to ineffectual levels), but for sheer bulk, venison was the only way to go.
The trout would just lie close to the stream’s bank, and wait for a deer to come down for a drink. The second Bambi’s nose touched the water, a giant trout’s jaws would clamp onto it, and drag its dinner into the depths.
Those of us on the East Coast can assure you that the reduction in trout size and numbers have resulted in a rapid expansion of the deer herds in our area, which (in turn) has led to terrible over-browsing of our woodlands and gardens. Shrubs and perennials now exist only in the glossy plant catalogs, artfully naturalized on our coffee tables. There are practically no woods with normal undergrowth anymore. If you’re young enough, you can kneel down and see for miles beneath the trees—everything that deer can reach has been eaten.
Fortunately, baby boomers’ attention is short—and they have, for the most part, abandoned the streams—first for mountain bikes; then, as their aging limbs gave out, for four-wheel drive vehicles. I think, if we can manage to keep their sport utility vehicles out of the trout streams, there is a small chance that the normal balance of nature will reassert itself. The deer-eating trout may rise again from the primordial depths to gorge themselves on flesh—perhaps even the flesh of yuppies.
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