Well we missed the big trout opener again. I can’t understand why the wife insists on scheduling our annual sheep shearing day on the most hallowed of all fishing days. And what self respecting sheep shearer works on opening day anyway? I mean what could possibly compare to the excitement, the grandeur or the revelry of opening day on Lake Wilderness or Pine Lake? Surely not Blue Cr., or the Barrier dam, or the Sekiu king opener, or Buoy 10, Bogey brats, Quilcene, or even Minter Creek. (OK, maybe Hoodsport comes a close second.) But even when I mentioned TRIPLOIDS to her she didn’t even blink. What, I ask you, have I done to deserve this?

Oh well, they can’t take away the memories? Speaking of which, it occurred to me that there are probably a lot of great opening day stories to be shared by members of this board. For those of you who are too bashful (yah, I’ve seen you out there), I’ll start things off with one of my favorites; a real classic.

About 20 years ago, two hard core fishing buddies and I decided to take all 4 of our kids (ages 4-7) up to Pine Lake for the opener. Good thing the General flat refused to go because there wasn’t much room left in the drift boat with all seven of us plus tackle. Anyway, the fun began as we pulled up to the boat launch at daybreak. Even though you could literally walk from one end of the lake to other across the boats that covered it, we launched anyway. It was so congested at the launch we barely went 10 yards from where we dropped in. So we started things off with a single egg on my son’s hook. No sooner did he drop it in the water than wham, fish on. So, unhook the fish, another Pautzke, in the water, wham, another fish. Within minutes it’s pandemonium. People all around us are nailing fish, hooks and bobbers are flying, fish are flopping in the bottom of our boat, girls are shrieking, boys are complaining they haven’t had their turn and my son is demanding another egg for his hook. So to get him off my back, I pretend to put an egg on for him, toss the bare hook and bobber out and turned to help the others get their bait in the water too. Before I get the next rig out, Evan is hauling in another one on his bare hook. On seeing this, the guys and I toss out the other kids’ bobbers with the bare hooks and, low and behold, fish on, one right after the other non stop. Within minutes we’ve got seven limits flopping around the bottom of the boat and the guys and I are too busy dealing with the chaos to ever wet a line. When we pulled out, no one believed the kids when they proudly told them that all they used were these little bare gold hooks. My son still thinks he has the Midas fishing touch and that all fish tremble where he walks. I haven’t had the heart to tell him in all these years that the Game Dept. had just dumped tens of thousands of hungry little fish at the launch the day before.

Good times. How about some of yours?

Moch, I don't think you're going to get any replies. I think that me and you are the only ones that haven't left town for opening day of trout fishing.
Cute story about the bare hooks.
I can't really think of anything odd about my opening day adventures?
Unless I can count the time my family and I were at Leader Lake opening weekend and the lake was extremly crowded.
My mother, who is not a big drinker, was bustin down Harvey wall bangers for most the day. OK, all day. About 4:00pm the camper door flies open and my mother screems at the top of her lungs, "Come and get your f...ing spagetti"!!!
I swear it echoed across the lake a half dozen times. Everybody around us pops their heads up and looked around to see who was going answer that dinner bell. We beached the boat a little further down the lake from camp and snuck back for dinner.

I live by Martha lake in Lynnwood, so I thought I would stroll down there this morning at 6:30 to see what was shaking after reading the triploid stocking reports. This is a great little lake and park I bring my daughter to play on the bigtoys and go for walks, and I fish there sometimes when I only have an hour or two to get out.

I get down there and cant park within 5 blocks it seemed. Get to the dock and there is literally a line of people 5-10 deep waiting on the walkway out to the each fishing dock waiting to throw their monster powerbait balls in the water.

I don't use powerbait cause I think the stuff is just nasty (except for fire red powerbait above red hooks for sockeye in LW ) ...I had brought my own worms because they worked well for me there last summer.

I get out there and carefully place my cast in the first 3 degree window I could find and pour a cup of coffee, start people watching.

Next to me, a guy is using two spark plugs tied together for weight, with powerbait lurking on his 6 inch leader.
On about his forth cast he zings the poorly tied setup and one plug flies off, landing about 150 yards out in the lake amongst three boats. The first close call and slew of profanity of the morning.

Later, two fishermen zip by the dock in a 6 ft dingy with a gas-powered weed eater that he rigged with homemade propellers on the eater end, sticking out the back of his boat. I heard from the park ranger lady that he was later ticketed for using a combustible engine on the lake. I think he thought he could hide it or ???

Several fish around 7-8 inches are caught on the dock and these guys are stringing them up. I eventually told one he should throw it back (I think the min is 8"?). Also saw two fish caught bigger than 24".

I think I'll stop explaining there, you get the idea, kinda fires me up enough to start a thread on a thought about this. A total disrespect for the lake, the fish, and other people.
's

were the spark plugs platinum, or just regular? it really makes a difference.

You should see North Lake in Federal Way. While I didn't get a chance to check it out yesterday, I went by there last year on opening day and there were trailers parked all the way out on the street. I parked and walked up to the lake, leaving my gear in the car, and you could practically jump across the lake from boat to boat. I turned around and headed up to Five Mile Lake on Military, where I caught about a dozen 10"+ crappies. I'd rather fish for crappies than undersized mushy stocker trout any day of the week.

Sky-Guy,

I'm sure I've run into Mr. Spark Plug a time or two myself. I wonder if it's the same dude and if he's related to the guy I run into from time to time while springer fishing on the Icicle who uses railroad spikes for weights? This guy absolutely swears by them and says that a single works great for drifting and a double is the ideal set up for plunking. Man, you oughta see folks clear out when he's casting though. First time I ran into him I thought someone had just thrown a brick in the pool.

Hmmmm, think it might work up at the barrier dam?

Took out my Son on opening day, we had a blast catching many trout like this one.

FishDoctor,

Now that's what opening day is all about!

Thanks for a picture worth a thousand posts.

I don't have any good opening day stories, unless you count watching my 6'3" -330lbs. fishing buddie drag a 2lb rainbow about 200yds. across a lake to show it off, when I noticed his 8ft. plastic seylor raft was only about 1-2" from going under needless to say he almost made it to shore. oh well to me it was funny. Anybody happen to fish Rattlesnake in Northbend? drove up there today but didn't talk to anyone ,lots of float tubers, minimal boats on the water. no parking places within a half mile. too lazy to walk that far if I'm not fishing. funny stories you guys come up with.

Spark Plugs

Hey Sparky is that how you got your nick name... :p

I took my Pontoon Boat out on Martha Lake for the 1st time on Sunday. It was busy, but not quite as bad what was described for Saturday. I got a couple of planters with my 6wt and a green kerry in a couple of hours. Even those little ones are fun to catch on a fly rod!!!

What REALLY cracks me up is watching people line up to fish a lake that's open year-round.

Well, I actually like opening day, but I fish a lake that's not too crowded, fish out of my nice roomy Smokercraft way out in the middle, and launch before daylight. And on opening day my wife and daughter are never bored

We caught double and triple headers for a couple hours, kept only the ones that were fatally hooked, plus a couple of hog triploids, until we had 15 between the 3 of us, all trolling Dick Nites on featherweight flyrods. Real blast. Fished Sunday too but the fishing had already slowed down to "single headers" only and wife and daughter finally fell asleep as the action was less than constant. I got to catch most of the fish that way though

Have enough trout, and springer fishing is likely over where I like to fish, so it's Kokes and Halibut next <img border="0" alt="[Goldfish]" title="" src="graemlins/goldfish.gif" />

Good thread Mooch,
here's my $.02

I grew up around Mineral Lake, one of the prime opening day circus spectacles in the state! We moved there when I was 11 and that first year was a real eye opener...a 200+ acre lake that you could walk across on the boats...Know a guy that did it too,About 1983, he explained to folks what he was doing and made it all the way to the north end and back in about 4 hours(A prime example of why not to spend more than 2-3 hrs in the Mineral Tavern). Boat trailers lining the mineral hill road for the better part of a mile and a half. Fireworks, capsizings, gunshots, dogbites, dogfights, fistfights, drownings, drunks, car wrecks...the list goes on and on...
When I got a little older and learned to dive I could figure on 4 or 5 drunk morons every year spinning their outboards off their transoms. Made really good money for several years. Not to mention all the parties and drinking and girls camping with their families...well you get the idea
I left in 1986 and to tell the truth, I don't miss it at all. anymore I hear the words opening day and I head the other direction. I went down to Coulon Sat. morning just to scope it out and could not believe the mess , we did not even go out in the boat this weekend. I guess I just don't have the patience for that kind of thing anymore, I put up with it all week and by the time the weekend rolls around I want to get the hell away from everyone. So we did a B'day party with freinds and a keg of Mac & Jacks African and BBQ'd Blackmouth...
Oh and speaking of lakes that are open year round...Riffe and Mayfield used to be pretty good on opening day too. Although they are both quite a bit bigger so it dosen't seem so crowded. My brother in law is an operator at the Cowlitz falls dam, I guess Scanawea was kinda fun this year too.
The ones that always puzzled me were Packwood Lake and Horseshoe. Why in the he!! would so many folks drive so far from the metro area into the woods to be packed in like sardines around a lake in the "wilderness" with umpteen thousand other Idiots that drove 3 hours to "get away from it all"