Fish story: Trout season opens in Illinois

Fish stories come in all shapes and (usually exaggerated) sizes.

But no matter who's telling them, or where, one thing is certain: You just can't have a good fish story without a fish.

There's no "Finding Nemo" without Nemo. There's no Moby Dick without Moby Dick - and yes, we realize a whale is a mammal and not a fish, but bear with us, we're trying to make a point here.

All of which explains why tellers of tall tales, along with plenty of other area anglers who would never dream about lamenting the one that got away, were feeling as sunny as, well, a sunfish Saturday when rainbow trout season opened at 46 locations across the state, including three DuPage County Forest Preserve lakes: Silver Lake at Blackwell near Warrenville; Pickerel Lake at Pratt's Wayne Woods near Wayne; and Grove Lake at Wood Dale Grove near Wood Dale.

One is tempted to say everything was coming up rainbows for participating fishermen and women, but that seems too easy and perhaps a little unkind to the trout who were innocently paddling around looking for the buffet line when somebody suddenly gave them the hook.

And it wasn't exactly like those who cast their lines had any doubt there were some good-sized trout swimming laps out there. In preparation for Saturday's opening, the forest preserve district stocked Pickerel Lake with about 2,000 pounds of the fish along with 500 pounds at Grove Lake and a whopping 3,200 pounds at Silver Lake.

Still, no matter how good the fishing was on opening day, it's a good bet there will be plenty of trout to go around for the foreseeable future.

If you'd like to drop them a line, remember all anglers 16 and older must carry valid Illinois fishing licenses with inland trout stamps if they want to try their luck in DuPage. And the creel limit for rainbow trout is five per day with no length restriction.

That part about no length restrictions is really important, because you should have seen the whopper ...