be free of all fishing traffic. On the Opener, fair weather or foul, anglers came out in force to fish, pee in the bushes, and celebrate a victory over another long Winter. I turned north on Sand Road and dropped into the river valley. Just short of a bridge slightly narrower than a car and a barreling milk truck could make simultaneously, on the left and back in the trees, I spotted the Creel, just like the map promised I would. I turned in the drive and parked between a formidable red camper truck and a green Volvo station wagon.

The Creel is less a cabin than it is a shack: one room with a bunk bed fashioned out of rough lumber, two cast-off couches, a table, a shelf filled with mostly-empty Schnapps bottles, a decks of 49 cards, grimy beer glasses, various trophies (the tassel from an “exotic dancer,” a pilfered cue ball, a few rusted spinner-baits, etc), another shelf supporting an ominously antique Coleman stove, no heat, no plumbing, and a perpetual odor of must, all of this separated from the outside world, somewhat informally, by log walls and a moss encrusted roof. Outside The Creel were hung articles of clothing, creels, rods, and a long string of freshly dressed brown trout. Two men sat on the lawn in ladder-back chairs. Next to them, her legs demurely crossed, sat an inflatable woman. A third man was fiddling with something at a folding camp table. They all eyed me, curious.

Neither Jerry nor Ladd wore a shirt; and both were drinking beers while supervising Mike who was busily burning a bundt cake in a camp oven. From out of the woods emerged Dick. For a shocking second I thought he was naked except for a cowboy hat and rubber boots, but it was just that his white jockey shorts blended in perfectly with his pale skin. He was carrying a roll of toilet paper. For a moment I had serious misgivings about joining this or any society, and I wondered if they weren’t feeling a little put off that a stranger had broken into their company, a company who had a long history of spending the Opener together.

I had nothing to worry about. Within minutes I had been greeted, shown around, and elected Social Chairman for the remainder of the trip (this meant I had to come up with ideas for activities, suggestions which were immediately mocked and discounted, and I had buy the first round of drinks when we went to town). Within hours I was wading up the Clam River with Dick. That night, and for the next 18 years, I was awarded a bunk and a ticket to hear a symphony of ripsnarl snoring. I was in the woods, out of the Winter. I was home.

There have been a few changes in the routine over the last 18 years. We’re more politically correct now : no rubber maidens sitting in a lawn chair; no stolen cue balls; a damn site fewer beer cans tossed in the bushes; no boozy drives down the middle of country roads or stops at strip joints. Now- a-days we go straight to the Creel to cook steaks and drink beer. No one keeps fish anymore. But for the most part, Opening Day has remained a durable formula. Mike still cooks breakfast, and we still head to Spooner for a dinner of steaks and beer. If the weather is fine, Dick still walks around in his undershorts and shoes. Jerry still insists we talk about the days when we could cast with deadly accuracy because we were still loose from a night of getting deadly drunk. Ladd sleeps late on Sunday morning. We still show off new fishing gadgets. The fish reported as caught continue to be four to seven inches longer than they really were. A lot of the time we just sit around and laugh.

Solitude is still my soul’s best friend... for most of the season. But after a bitter, isolated winter, I have come to think that there are few things better than pulling on waders and stepping into a Spring-swollen, gelid river, and having a friend nearby to laugh as I stumble on rocks and nearly go under. And few things beat stepping out of the river, walking along a country road , looking through the thin green curtain of foliage deep into the woods, and arriving back at camp to share burned bundt cake and beer with a group of guys whose only agenda is to promote each other’s happiness, and share in the relief at being outside for another season of trout fishing.

Peter Graff, a teacher by vocation and a fly fisherman, columnist, and web designer by avocation, writes "The Last Cast" which appears regularly in Midwest Fly Fishing.