Beginning of the rainbows

At 6:10 a.m. Tuesday, five fishermen stood on the western bank of Rotary Lake at Jackson City Park. It was 35 degrees, but the pre-dawn images around the black water somehow made it feel colder.

The heavily insulated fishermen, the fishing dock and the naked trees surrounding the lake were silhouetted against the scattered yellow security lights in the distance. Daylight was still 50 minutes away.

The lake was as quiet as it was dark. The only sounds that interrupted the silence were the faint mechanical workings of a reel, the occasional "ker-ploink" of bait into water and the soft surface splashes of a rainbow trout being pulled to shore. There was very little talking. Just fishing.

Tuesday was the first day of Jackson's second catch-and-keep trout season. Once the eyes adjusted to the darkness, the distant yellow glow revealed perhaps five more anglers on the opposite shore of the three-acre pond. By 8 a.m., more than 20 fishermen appeared. More will likely cast their luck this weekend.

Statistics show that the program was wildly popular last year. The Missouri Department of Conservation reports trout permits in 2004 for Cape Girardeau County increased to 457 from 206 the previous year.

"We're one of the father-son routines," Pat Bira said softly as to not scare the fish away. He and his eighth-grade son, Ben, drove over from Cape Girardeau. Last year, the Biras were among the anglers who walked out onto the ice, broke holes and dropped their lines in. They were two of the first fishermen to ever try out Jackson's urban trout program. They were eventually shooed off the ice, but they'll never forget watching the fish fight their lines through the clear, solid layer of water.

There was no ice Tuesday.

"This is pretty mild," Ben said. "Even the fair-weather fishermen will be out today."

Just a few dozen feet to the right of the Biras, another father-son tandem was casting into the darkness. Kevin Davault and his son, Garrett, stood atop the lake's deck. Three trout flopped in a five-gallon bucket near their feet.

Garrett, a middle-school student in Cape Girardeau, said he likes cold and damp weather. The two crawled out from under the warm covers at 4 a.m.

"He's been looking forward to this for three months," his father said. "He loves to fish."

Both Garrett Davault and Ben Bira weren't sacrificing school lessons. Shortly after dawn, they gave up trout for tutelage.

"We'll come again in the afternoon," Garrett said.

Jackson's second trout season opened without a snag, said conservation agent Gene Myers, who was going around checking for fishing permits and trout tags Tuesday morning.

"We had as many as 25 out here," he said, while making the rounds at about 9 a.m. "For a weekday, that's pretty good. Everybody seems pretty happy."

So far, only 32 trout tags have been sold in Cape Girardeau County this year. But with temperatures forecast for the 50s this weekend, Myers figures many more will be sold between now and then.

About 800 to 900 pounds of trout have been poured into Rotary Lake, the same amount as last year. That's about 1,100 fish. That proved to be just about the right number last year as fishermen caught trout through March.

Trout require cold temperatures compared to other fish in the lake. Conservation department officials found very few dead fish in the lake when the water temperature rose above the trout's threshold.

Chris Kennedy, a fisheries expert with the conservation department, said he's heard a lot of positive comments from the public. Jackson's urban trout program is one of few around the state. St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City also make trout fishing available in lakes. Very few Missouri rivers can accommodate the trout's demands for cooler water temperatures, so city dwellers, prior to the urban programs, rarely got to fish for trout.

"We haven't put one in yet that didn't do well," Kennedy said.

The father-and-son tandems are part of what's making Jackson's program popular.

Ron Eskew took the day off from his job as Scott City's city administrator to take his 70-year-old father, Jim, to the lake.

"It's his 70th birthday," Ron said. "My dad took me out of school when I was 12 to go to my first trout season. So I decided to bring him out here on his birthday."

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635