Is this an adage or an idiom? More like, don’t catch fish and go tie more flies. In a few days, the season will open up in the great north (north of here), and thousands of hopeful candidates will rush to the waters in a relentless pursuit of stocked trout. Yes, those misaligned refugees from a hatchery and without a home in their native waters to fall back on. Mostly near natives like the trusty brown trout or the west coast refugees like the sleek rainbow. The true natives are holed up in small pockets spread thin across the Appalachian Mountains, Adirondacks, Green or White Mountains up into New England and the Maritimes of eastern Canada.
Please note I’ve labeled brown trout as a near native, based on my theory that sometime ago, sea-run browns did populate our rivers like their distant cousin, the Atlantic salmon. They go together like ham and eggs. Browns follow salmon upstream to feed on the abundant eggs and fry that eventually emerge. Why they disappeared is anyone’s guess, but logic suggests that overfishing by European settlers decimated the populations of all salmonoids in the New World.
So, on opening day, some will plod along, chasing the elusive stockies, and spend the next few days racking up the numbers and bragging to all who are in earshot, “You shoulda been there! It was like knocking off cans at a shooting gallery!” or some similar adage or idiom.
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