Welcome to Open Season, SEPA!

Collateral damage.

Well, the trout season is upon us. Not that qualified anglers haven't been able to fish pretty much all year, but it generally announces the arrival of Those Guys at the streamside.

You know who I mean. Boat rods spooled with what appears to be 20# test, throwing enough hardware to equipment a Sports Authority. Swivels to snelled line, monster size 8 hook with globs of PowerBait and a couple of size 3/0 Watergremlins an inch above the hook. If you're really lucky, there'll be a giant red and white strike indicator bobber there to bring it all together.

Its not that I belittle them for the insane ways in which they angle (well, I do, but still, work with me), its about the absolutely barbaric way in which they destroy every living thing they come across. 

I dunno, but I find it inherently displeasing to see fish gasping their last with a wire clamp out their gill, or worse yet, the ones in a plastic bag.

Nor will I belittle the guy's who was 'pinning the Monocacy Creek in Bethlehem... OK, yes, yes I will. I mean, sure, he and his buddy were putting them back, which is nice and all, but really... you broke out the centerpin...for....that?! Talk about bringing a knife flamethrower to a gun fight.

Just add water.

As for fishing, for the first time in my short fly fishing life, I was nailin' stockies like they were going out of style. Everyone says the secret is flashy, and so flashy I went. Flashy, and old school. It was Royal Coachmen all damned day long. Matter of fact, I had such an obnoxiously good time, I ended up losing them all to angry fish who'd snap off the 4x tippet on takes alone.

Hell. Yes. Swing, then dangle. The drift worked, and the swing worked better. But, the dangle? That shit slayed 'em.

I had to break for lunch to go home and tie up some more, unfortuantly when I got back my little corner of the stream seemed to have sprouted an angler hatch, and it wasn't nearly as easy, still, I did OK.

Enough that some guy asked me later, after I'd been rudely skunked by rising fish (those bastards, don't they know I have a purist reputation to uphold), "where you that guy taking them cast after cast this morning?" He didn't believe it was nymph free fishing, just down and across all day long.

You'll notice no hero shots. Fat stockies or not, they're just dumb stockies. The beautiful brown, on the other hand, that fell for the same stupid RC, he should've been picture worthy, but unlike the harvesters of sorrow, I like to give them the best chance to survive.

Even the stockers. I figure 30 seconds with a hook in your jaw beats  the last minutes of your life in a plastic bag. I like to hope I give them a bit of an education.