While the State of California decreed that last weekend was the opening day of trout season, the Good Lord has his own schedule. Although you can legally fish now for Sierra Trout, snow banks still block many of the roads to the streams and melting snow has filled the creeks with roaring water that is just barely above freezing.  Trying to fish now can be darned dangerous as well as only marginally productive. As the weather continues to inexorably march toward summer, the real opening day will soon be here.

            As opening day of trout season draws ever nearer, I find my anticipation level rising. I find myself tying far more flies than I could ever use. I pursue angling catalogs with greater frequency, searching for that one piece of gear that will perfect my angling in the coming season. Even my dogs sense my rising expectations, eagerly wagging, prancing, and panting every time I approach the front door. Like my dogs, I become more agitated with each passing day. By the final night before opening day, I invariably sleep fitfully and awake exhausted.

            With the coming of the dawn on the big day, however, a sudden magical transformation takes place. My weary legs seem suddenly fit, my bloodshot eyes seem to shake off the effects of the previous night's preventive snake bite medicine, and my hands stop quivering as soon as a fishing rod is placed in them. Where the night before, my blood pressure approached the Dow Jones average. As soon  as I step into the stream, it drops to the approximate temperature of the water.

            There are no schedules on the streams, and the only timepiece of consequence is the sun as it dawdles its way across the sky. The city sounds of jangling phones, screeching brakes, and wailing sirens are replaced by the soft rustle of squirrels in the springtime leaves and the gentle murmur of the stream. Ordinarily, my nose  rebels at vehicle exhaust fumes, or cigars around the poker table. Yet, when I take my first breath of morning mountain air, or the get my first whiff of frying bacon and coffee, suddenly, my sinus problems become a thing of the past.

            My perception of the human race with all of its required niceties undergoes an opening transmutation as well.  Five days out of the seven (approximately 81.428% of the time), I wear civilized clothing. Once astream, however,  I feel unashamedly the equal of any self-respecting hobo, in my battered hat, faded jeans and ragged fishing shirt. Instead of emitting  exotic odors purchases from Brut, Gillett, I take delight in smelling of real leather and honest sweat.

            Should someone dressed as poorly as I approach me on the city street, I would avoid him as the bum he obviously is, yet when someone dressed poorly approaches me when afield, my first reaction is one of kinship and if in need, my shabby brother has but to ask.

            When another opening day dawns, it really matters little whether I catch a hundred fish or none, whether they be large or small. What matters is that although I may be a hundred miles or so from work, my mind is light years away. My worries and cares will be washed away by the steam as surely as baptism cleansing sin. I am rejuvenated in body as well as spirit and perhaps it is no accident that opening day usually arrives just about the same time as Easter.