Friday, March 28, 2008

Along some trout streams in the midstate, it's always OPEN SEASON

By CHRIS A. COUROGEN

The opening of trout season Saturday will be a festive event in Boiling Springs. Hordes of fishermen will crowd the banks of Children's Lake, hoping to hook a fish and not one of dozens of boats in a small flotilla on the seven-acre lake.

"It is the biggest holiday of the season around here," said fishing guide Tom Baltz of Mount Holly Springs. "It's almost bigger than Christmas."

The crowds of anglers and the festive atmosphere will be repeated along the banks of the Yellow Breeches up and downstream from Boiling Springs. Similar scenes will be found along trout waters throughout the 18 south-central and southeastern Pennsylvania counties that get a two-week jump on the rest of the state under the early opening day program the state Fish and Boat Commission's instituted last year.

"It is exciting to see the incredible crowds of people and the big crowds of kids at the lake the first day," South Middleton Twp. resident Jim Hutcheson said.

"Personally, for the fishing, it's not a big turn-on," he said.

Not that he isn't serious about trout fishing. The former foreign service officer, who learned to fly-fish while serving at the U.S. Embassy in Poland, is president of the Cumberland Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited. He moved to this area from Washington, D.C., when he retired four years ago.

"The fishing was the sole reason I moved here," he said.

The Yellow Breeches and other streams help give the midstate a worldwide reputation as a trout-fishing mecca.

Hutcheson's lack of excitement about opening day stems from guidelines that restrict a prime, one-mile stretch of the Yellow Breeches and parts of other streams to catch-and-release fishing. There is no closed season in those designated special regulation areas, rendering opening day a non-event to anglers who fish there.

The state began its special regulations program in the late 1930s. Since 1983, the program has been emphasized more, said Tom Greene, leader of the Fish and Boat Commission's cold water unit. That was also the year those special regulation waters were opened to year-around fishing.

Many of the special areas are limited to catch-and-release, most only allowing use of flies or artificial lures. Some areas allow bait fishing and a limited harvest of trout, but no fish may be kept from the day after Labor Day until the opening day of trout season.

The temperate climate of this part of Pennsylvania, compared with much of the state, makes it possible for anglers to take advantage of the no-closed-season regulations. The area's limestone springs that feed most of the best trout streams also help.

"The fish can feed all year around because the water comes out of the ground around 51 degrees. You very seldom get a big freeze-up bank to bank," said Carlisle native Ed Shenk, the author of "Fly Rod Trouting."

"The area is sort of the tropics of Pa. You can fly-fish here all four seasons," said Gene Giza, a fishing guide who took advantage of Tuesday's weather and a stonefly hatch on the Yellow Breeches to go fishing.

Giza's Four Seasons Fly Fishing Guide Service is busiest from early March until late October, but he doesn't close down over the winter.

"You'd be surprised the number of people that get cabin fever," Giza said.

Many of the fishermen who take advantage of the special regulation waters in the off-season will sit out opening day, bemoaning the crowds.

Baltz pooh-poohs those attitudes. He said he will wait until the afternoon, when the crowds have thinned.

"You get out. It's a tradition kind of thing," he said. "They're reading too many old fishing books about peace and solitude. There is plenty of time for that later."

CHRIS A. COUROGEN: 255-8112 or ccourogen@patriot-news.com