The flying fishing club headed to the great outdoors last week for their first field trip.

In the morning, the group headed to Mosquito Valley to release the trout they had been growing for the past three months in a tank in Mr. Schneider’s room. In the afternoon, they traveled to Slate Run to go fishing.

“We hope to make this an annual event,” explained Mr. Yohn, one of the club advisors. “Some of the kids in the club are avid fishers, but not all of them, so we want to promote interest in the sport.”

Gabe Fioretti explained the decision to release the fish in the chosen location. “We released the fish on private land, because that will give the fish a chance to mature. We also found a place that has good conditions for the trout. There’s lots of food available in the stream where we released.”

A main part of a trout’s diet is stone flies.  “They look kind of like grasshoppers,” Fioretti explained.

Stone flies lay their eggs under rocks. When the eggs hatch, they leave the bottom of the stream and eventually develop wings that allow them to fly out of the water.

“When the sun warms the water a little bit, it causes the insects to hatch and fly out of the water,” Reed added.

“The conditions were good that day because we saw fish jumping like crazy. It was sunny and cloudy in the afternoon, and when the sun came out, the insects went crazy. The stream was covered with them. They were swarming all around our heads,” Fioretti reported.

“It was a very educational trip,” Reed said. “We had to study the aquatic ecosystem to determine which hatch was coming off the water in order to match our bait to the insects. It was a caddis hatch the day we were on the stream.”

Reed caught two fish. “I brought two fish to hand,” Reed explained is the correct terminology. “I had a lot of fish take the bait, but fish can tell in less than a second the difference between bait and live insect and you have be really quick to hook the fish.”

Reed began fishing with his dad when he was three years old. “I love it,” he said. “I fish year round.”