Matthew Dickerson, Addison Independent, April 19, 2001 (reprinted by permission)
I begin this article with a painful confession: for the second time in the past fifteen years, I did not fish on opening day of trout season. On most years it would have been a terrible blow to my psyche to have missed this annual ritual. This year, however, I wasn't terribly disturbed. Though Vermont's 2001 trout season began as late as possible (the second Saturday of April fell on the 14th of the month) the local rivers were not in a state conducive to fishing. To be specific, though the water is neither especially high nor murky for this time of year, thanks to the long late winter and our record setting March snowfall it is still frigid. The water is coming right off the deep packs of snow still melting in the mountain.
Even brook trout, which of all river-dwelling trout like the coldest temperatures, do not reach peak metabolism until temps reach the upper forties. All of which is to say, though it was a little painful to drive along my favorite river and see several anglers working its banks, I didn't mind missing opening day too greatly because I knew that nobody was going to catch anything.
Well, not quite "nobody". There was nine year old Levi Fleury of Ripton who was taken out fishing by family friend and fellow Riptonite Bill Sargent. All Levi came home with was a 25 and 1/2 inch brown trout. That's all. Just the fish of a lifetime.
So the first question that came to my mind--and the question leaping into the minds of all anglers reading this column: "Where?" On learning of the fish, I popped that question to Bill Sargent over the phone. He was willing to pinpoint the location to somewhere in Vermont. (I might have been annoyed at such an answer, except it's the same one I've given on several occasions.) You might think I would have had more success plying Levi for that information, but Bill had trained his young protege all too well. In fact, I'd already tried Levi who would only tell me he could it out of the water, thus proving that he not only learned the first lesson of fishing, but the second as well.
Between my interviews of Bill and Levi, however, I did manage to get something of a story on how the fish was caught, if not where. It was mid-afternoon, about when the water was reaching its peak temperature for the day. They were fishing worms, and Levi had 6-lb test line on an open-faced reel. Bill had taken his own son along with Levi to one of his favorite spots. (A stream with an undercut bank, somewhere in the mountains, maybe?) There, in a stretch of fairly clear water, they had spotted a large fish hiding under the bank, and had passed several worms by it. Finally, after numerous failed attempts, Levi had managed to hook up with it. With coaching from Bill (but no other help) Levi managed to reel the monster in close to shore. (Did I mention that Levi was only nine?) Then Bill--who by his own account was as excited as Levi and more nervous having a good appreciation of the fish's size--jumped into the water and grabbed it by the tail. Though it was the only fish any of them caught that day, none of them were complaining. It was a fish I'm sure they will all remember. Indeed, it will be difficult for Levi to ever top that fish--unless he moves to Alaska--but nobody is feeling sorry for him.