Happy May Day! With Bacon

So this all started as a Happy May Day post. No Occupy protests, no International Workers on the march, no parades of Soviet military hardware. Just the good old fashioned May Day where you look around and say, "Hey look, it's May, for crying out loud!"

When I was a kid we made simple baskets, filled them with simple flowers--dandelions, and maybe for good measure some more dandelions, hung them on the front door knob, rang the bell and ran away to hide, laughing like little maniacs. We'd watch breathlessly while our Mom would open the door, look surprised, and look all around to see who had left her such a marvelous gift, pretending that she couldn't see us. She'd close the door--and we'd do it all over again. And again and again until she finally told us that was enough. Now that was fun. Kids today don't know how to have fun like that.

So then I thought, wouldn't it be cool to find a photo of a basket of trout to hang on your cyber door knob. You know, May Day for a fly fishing blog. And I found one, a postcard from 1902. Cool.

But then I noticed another photo of a basket with trout, and when I checked it out it was from April 6 this year. I admit it, as primarily a catch and release guy I can forget that many folks still fish for food. That's certainly true around here, just as much as in New Jersey, where this photo is from. So that got me going off in a different direction.

I got interested in the story of David and Natalia, who fished on opening day--April 6--in Stokes State Park in New Jersey. The park website posted these photos.

They did alright. They got their limit on each of the two days they fished. The limit was 6 fish apiece per day. The caption on the photo above says this was their "partial catch" for day two. The website said that 6,000 trout of from 3 to 8 pounds had been stocked across 88 streams and 90 ponds.

And they knew how to get them. I've had more than one old timer tell me not to waste my time with fly fishing, that the number one trout-getter of all time is a juicy worm dead-drifted deep.

And Natalia knew how to cook them. Bacon-Wrapped Brookies. Yum! You know, I've never had trout fried up that way. How could that be? The sheltered existence of a catch and release fisherman, I guess.

So, it's always interesting to see how other people live, and fish. And to get a glimpse into what it's like to be a trout fisherman in New Jersey.

So where was I? Oh yeah, Happy May Day!

Now I'm going to look up the limit for Brookie Lake. No, I won't be bringing home basketfuls of fish, but I think it's high time I fried up some Bacon-Wrapped Brookies.