Fishing Season

Long ago trout haul
for my father

Fishing fever is in the air, regardless of snowbanks and low temperatures and all who have ever suffered from the malady are subject to its attack. There is one cure and only one cure for this peculiar disease - fishing.

The season is early this year  and more than one fisherman enthusiast is wondering if the snow will be gone and the flood waters down to something like normal when that glorious day arrives - the first day of the fishing season.

Many an old timer, who has whipped some of the more than 700 miles of uncontaminated trout streams within the borders of Potter County has had the fever for weeks. Rods have been taken from winter quarters, joined up and tested, taken apart, rewound and varnished and again put together and tested. Baskets have been cleaned up and reels oiled. The book book of flies has been inspected and admired in fact.

Potter County streams are calling - the finest and purest streams on earth. In a short time the festive leek, famous as a Potter County vegetable, will soon complicate fishing fever and many a party will take to the woods and the streams and luscious leek patches, going back to nature. They will enjoy the health-giving outdoor life and the trout and leeks and be better men - and women for it. -- The Potter Enterprise, 1926

... from 1941

From Golly Column, 1936

Trout fishing season will open before the next issue of this paper.

What a lot of lies will be told!

What a lot of big ones will get away!

Sometimes we wonder at that saying, "Once a fisherman, always a liar.:" We really do not believe it holds good.

We have known Lynn Soper to promise trout for a supper for eight or ten people. He made good, too, with all the crowd could eat. He didn't lie about the trout or where he caught them. As a matter of fact, he did not tell where he found such good fishing, but months later it leaked out that he fished in hatchery ponds near Port Allegany. Lynn's word is good 100%.

Teddy Kiehle, never to our knowledge, told a lie about the fish he caught or the big ones that got away. Teddy was famous as a builder of split bamboo fly rods until age dimmed his vision.

But Teddy almost failed to make good with a deal he made with us some years ago. It was our first fishing trip with Teddy. We were frank enough to admit we couldn't do much with a rod, but we could cook and serve up the pancakes and hash and leeks and coffee. 

We remember well Teddy's reply: "That's fine you do the cooking and I'll catch the trout!"

By golly, we were on the stream – Cross Fork – three days and Teddy caught two trout. Then we declared that we could cook better than Teddy could fish or we would have starved.

Regardless of the fish caught, few or many - there was never a better pal along the trout streams or in the tent pitched under the trees or seated about the evening campfire, than Teddy. We have fond memories of his interesting tales, his droll humor and his wilderness wisdom.