My Tummy Tingles...

Today is Opening Day of Trout Season in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  No, oddly enough, it's not the opener for the whole state, just Southeastern PA.  Why?  I don't know.  Pennsylvania is silly that way, just like the fact that you can't buy beer in supermarkets or convenience stores in the Keystone State either.

Sucks even more than usual to live out in Western PA

Hopefully by the time you're reading this, I've already caught my limit of sloppy pig stockers with my buddy Mostel, however I happen to be writing this the night before Opening Day, so you'll need to deal with this unique commingling of past & present tense in the various time references.

Anyway, I love Opening Day.  I love the crowds, I love the eager, yet sadly deformed fish, I love hanging out with old friends, all the things that turn a lot of serious anglers off...it's all good to me.  I actually look forward to it so much, the only thing I can compare it to is being a kid on Christmas Eve and just knowing when you get up in the morning there's going to be a He-Man Castle Grayskull under the tree just waiting to be unwrapped.

So Badass

My affection for Opening Day is really kind of silly when you think about it.  I don't usually like to fish for stockies.  Don't get me wrong, I'm no trout snob, it's just the water I like to fish usually isn't stocked.  I've come to prefer fly fishing to other forms, however tomorrow I will instinctively reach for my spinning rod.

Finally, to confuse matters even more, there's not really an off-season in Pennsylvania.  There's enough special regulation water where you can fish for trout year round - so the concept of Opening Day is almost irrelevant, I went trout fishing two weeks ago.  Yet I still can't wait for tomorrow to come.

The Arsenal

So tonight I sit...cranking out a hurried, somewhat random blog post that probably doesn't read well and likely contains multiple misspellings.  But I don't care, because my thoughts are elsewhere.  They are filling up my Plano tackle box with shiny new spinners of various designs, re-stringing my trusty Pflueger Trion reel, getting ready to go shoulder-to-shoulder combat fishing with worm dunkers, PowerBait plungers, and the random misplaced fly fisher.  Opening Day in Pennsylvania is a celebration unlike any other...and it's also only a few short hours away.