This is John Batchel. Conversation with my good colleague Jim McTag in Lancaster County,

formerly of Barron's now a novelist, about fishing season, trout season, opening April 4th.

Jim does not go the first weekend. That is filled with what he characterizes the amateurs who use worms.

He's a fly fisherman. He goes the second weekend, and he'll be fishing in Penn's Creek, and he'll be fishing for the native brook trout, the imported from the West Rainbow Trout, very large, and the imported from Europe brown trout. Brook Trout, he tells me, me are small he does not take them home he puts

them back in here's jim to describe what he's waiting for and you too can be a fly fisherman they're a little

snobby but they're cool more of this tonight trout fishing in pennsylvania is the biggest, most important story there is.

I actually have a trout stream in my backyard, which is stocked, and I never fish there,

because on opening day, the amateurs come out, the guys with worms, you know, who leave their trash all over the bank, and they just

want to catch as many fish as they can so they can go home and boast about what superb anglers

they are. I prefer going to Penn's Creek, which is two hours from here. I go to Whitech, Pennsylvania, because it has a fly shop and easy access.

It's on the way to Penn State.

It's a pristine stream, and it's just loaded with trout year-round.

They've become native, what technically native trout that they

don't have to be restocked every year. But you're not going the first day. You'll wait.

First day is amateur hour. I'd see equivalent. I mean, you know, first day is like the old supermarket.

Remember the days when they had cabbage batch dolls

and people would line up outside the stores and trample one another?

I mean, that's what it's like on opening day on the trout stream.

You get people who don't know what a fly is or a fly ride is. They're hauling

fish out of the creek as if they're crane operators, and it's just abysible. So I stay home for a

week after opening day. The trout you're fishing for, rainbow, brown, brook, and lake.

I believe the brook trout is native to Pennsylvania.

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