I’ve never eaten a trout I didn’t like. I like Salvelinuses more than Oncorhynchuses or Salmos but when fried crispy in bacon grease over a campfire the genus is immaterial.  Bacon marks the highpoint in the history of mankind, life’s meaningless without it.  Salvelinus, brook trout and lake trout are the only indigenous Adirondack trout. The other trout species have been trucked into Adirondack waters over the past 140 years to entice a broader spectrum of anglers and sustain New York’s lucrative sport fishing industry. Hatchery spawned splake, brown trout, rainbow trout and various salmon species tentatively coexist in Adirondack lakes and streams. Euripides said that variety is the spice of life. Ask a brook trout if he agrees.

I prefer fishing for brook trout because they’re splendiferous and they’re harder to find, especially the ones from native gene pools (pun). It’s kinda like finding a native Adirondacker. Locals are becoming scarcer as the generations flow by. I also prefer stream fishing for trout which doesn’t seem to be as popular as it was twenty years ago. Many trout anglers favor dredging lakes for beefy lakers, bows and landlocked salmon. More bang for their buck. (See Lenny Payne’s monster Seventh Lake laker in the June 5 Express.)  

I’m content stumbling down rock strewn tributaries attempting to fool eight inch brookies with a deer hair muddler minnow even though it was tied by a six year old Chinese kid in a Hunan sweatshop. Thanks, Shou-hi they work great. I enjoy watching trout rise to a perfectly presented Ausable Wolf in a gentle riffle, but that ain’t me babe.  Dry fly anglers sip Chardonnay with erect pinky fingers. Wet fly anglers are blue collar UC Gold chuggers. Like I care if my artificial bug drowns.

I’m not trying to snow anybody. I enjoy catching and eating trout. I believe I’m doing the besieged native trout population a favor by removing some of their Purina Trout Chow raised competition. I’m no purist. I’ll use fly, bait casting and spinning gear to catch a trout. I’d use blasting caps if I could score them without being arrested by Homeland Security as a trout terrorist. The biggest Adirondack brookie I’ve caught to date was on a Colorado spinner and wo, wo...orm. I enjoy lake fishing for trout as much as the next mope. What’s not to like about sitting (operative word) in a boat, no bugs, no coccyx busting slippery rocks and a big cooler full of yummy deli sandwiches and liquid refreshment. Simply toss a provocative lure overboard, stick your pole in a rod holder, lean back and tour the lake. It’s as much about the fishing as the catching.    

I finally found a kayak that I can fish from for more than an hour at a time.  

I traded in three back-numbing kayaks before I settled on a comfy Native Watercraft Ultimate 12 Tegris. It’s outfitted with a La-Z-Boy recliner. As long as I have my personalized maple syrup jug to bail me out, I can float for hours before blood ceases to reach my lower extremities. I can singlehandedly cartop this lightweight vessel even in my decrepit physical condition. Try as I may I can’t seem to capsize the Tegris. My usual entry is centering my right foot in the boat then plopping my tush into the seat. My exit strategy depends on arm atrophy and whether I can feel my feet.  Basically I roll outta the boat onto the beach like a two ton walrus. The squeamish should avert their eyes.    

In my youth nothing prevented me from going where trout live. I hiked for miles, swam raging rivers to the “good” side, assaulted beaver dams, defied hurricanes and portaged aluminum canoes over rocky ridges to secluded ponds. One of my honey holes on the South Branch of the Moose River required that I traverse a sixty degree sluice holding onto blueberry bushes with one hand while fly casting with the other. After hooking a trout I backtracked until I found a foothold where I could land the fish. I caught many brookies and rainbows outta that sluice and lived to tell about it. One slip and my bloated carcass would’ve eventually popped up in Lake Ontario. I was all about the pursuit of trout.    

Those days are bygoners. Now I’m all about comfort and convenience. I stream fish for two hours then I head for the nearest public house. I paddle my kayak for four hours, U-turn at beaver dams I once scaled effortlessly and head for the nearest public house.  Same for boat fishing. I fish four hours then put in at a convenient public house. These days I pray for foul weather so I can skip the fishing pretense and head directly to the nearest public house. Most of the memorable fish are caught there anyhow.  

I have plenty of pictures to remind me of the glory days when I was an iron man in a wooden boat, feared by all trout species. Now I’m just another has-been in a polyethylene kayak, comic relief for all trout species. It’s all good. I know how over-the-hill Muhammad Ali felt when he lost his final fight to no-name pug Trevor Berbick in 1981. I’m no longer a legend in my own mind. I float like a rock and sting like a punkie.  But as long as there’s a stream holding a brook trout, I’ll answer the bell and come out sling’in wet flies. I’ll go a couple of rounds with the trout, then go a couple of rounds at the public house. It’s a win-win.