Rainbow Trout

About 25,000 sun-gleaming, tail-flicking rainbow trout were dumped into Carroll County ponds and streams this month in preparation for the opening of trout season Saturday.By summer, Carroll anglers will have snagged most of the trout. Their short lives give their wild cousins, in the relatively few Maryland streams where trout live naturally, a better chance to survive and flourish.The goal of the trout stocking program "is to provide angling for trout you can take home and eat," said Charlie R. Gougeon, a central region fisheries biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources.

Kenneth Poff was among the first to hit the Gunpowder Falls and cast a line yesterday in what has become as much a rite of spring in Maryland as the first pitch at Opening Day for the Orioles: the official reopening of the trout season in Maryland."

As the late-winter sun warmed the woods lining Gunpowder Falls, a truck pulled up with a delivery of 3,000 feisty rainbow trout -- and Victor Broy got to thinking about lazy days and The Big One That Got Away."

There's something fishy going on in Dundalk, and Michael Francis is thrilled about it.Mr. Francis was the driving force behind yesterday's first stocking of Dundalk's Stansbury Pond with 500 rainbow trout. An avid angler, Mr. Francis lives two blocks from the man-made pond in Stansbury Park near Lynch Cove and fantasized about its prospects as a trout fishing hole during walks with his three children along the water's edge."I've always thought of this as being a nice place to fish trout," said Mr. Francis, who has lived in Stanbrook for 10 years.

On a day declared Code Red by the National Weather Service, a rusty brown wood thrush sang its song in the cool cover of trees in the Sweathouse Branch of Gunpowder Falls State Park, unaware that it was unhealthful to be outside."

With yesterday's opening of the 1995 trout season, Maryland anglers officially can declare the arrival of spring.Bob Lunsford of the Department of Natural Resources Freshwater Fisheries Division said before yesterday's start, "Last year we sold about 85,000 trout stamps, so I guess you can assume that the stream and pond banks will be lined to capacity again this year, too. Of course, not all of those anglers participated in put-and-take trout fishing, but...

A glint of silver and a flash of fractured light -- blue, green and red -- mark the spot where a moment before a fish had been. In the dappled fast-water world of mountain streams, the rainbow trout reigns supreme. It is a fish that stirs the imaginations of fishermen and cooks alike.Named for the "rainbow" band that runs the length of its olive-green skin, the rainbow trout is America's most popular sport fish. Wild trout are prized by fly fishermen for their fierce spirit and wily nature (and "catch and release" is the honored rule.

The last weekend in March should be declared a state holiday. It's a time when nearly every freshwater fisherman in Maryland treks to his favorite trout stream, dons ridiculous-looking clothing, and frequently catches nothing more than a bad cold.March 26 was opening day of trout season in Harford County.More than 2,000 county anglers pitted their fishing skills against 4,800 rainbow trout recently stocked in the waters of Deer Creek and Little Gunpowder River. When opening day arrived, the water was ice cold, murky and well above normal level -- less than optimal conditions.

Let the Gunpowder Beavers BeI recently went fishing on the Gunpowder River for trout after reading the June 1 article in The Sun about the killing of beavers on the Gunpowder watershed under permit by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.I did not see a single beaver, and the three beaver dams, which were there in February, were gone. The quality of my outdoor experience was lessened by their demise.It is my belief that the beavers and their dams were an asset to the Gunpowder State Park, the environment and even the trout in whose name they were sacrificed.