Trout season open at Seidel's

The Cranston Herald ·

Gone are the days when the Phenix Sportsmen’s Club of West Warwick would set up its famed “Chuck Wagon” – a.k.a. mobile kitchen – on the banks of Seidel’s Sanctuary and feed upwards of 300 kids a full breakfast on Opening Day of Rhode Island’s Trout Fishing Season.

Gone are the days when the Seidel family, which owns the picturesque property located in the Fiskeville section of Cranston, held the famed Seidel’s Trout Derby that featured bicycle giveaways in a number of categories like what angler age 14 and under caught the biggest fish and more.

Nevertheless, Opening Day of Trout Fishing Season was again special, even if there wasn’t a human circle of kids – back by their father’s and grandfather’s – around the pond at Seidel’s Sanctuary Saturday.

Take Andrew Welch, a 12-year-old from Warwick, who had been fishing before but never on opening day of trout season. It didn’t matter if 300 other kids or a couple of dozen children were on hand, reeling in his first-ever trout was a thrill and witnessed by his proud father.

For the Cirelli twins from Coventry, opening day of trout fishing season has become a rite of spring. After all, Saturday marked the seventh straight year that Landon and Paige Cirelli, 11, have cast their lines at Seidel’s Sanctuary.

“It’s not like it used to be here,” Derek Cirelli, the twins’ father, recalled of the days when opening day at Seidel’s featured breakfast, bicycles and hundreds of people. “But it’s a special day that never gets old. There are still lots of rainbows and brook trout here.”

And, as kids like Olysia Neives, 7, and Santino Fuoco, 5, learned from dear old dad, using worms for bait still works.

Moreover, there was another constant that surfaced Saturday morning, especially when Anna Gomes, 10, and Jaelynn Florio, 10, arrived at the famed fishing hole along with their family friends Devin Marks, 6, and Camrin Marks, 5.

Armed with as much enthusiasm as Charlie Moore (a.k.a. “The Mad Fisherman”) who hosts a popular television show entitled “Outdoors” on NESN cable network, the four children did everything from ready their poles to pose for pictures before they cast their lines in hopes of reeling in the day’s biggest fish.

Although attendance seemed down somewhat than it’s been in past years, Seidel’s Sanctuary is still the site where some special childhood dreams become reality.

Seidel’s Pond is stocked annually by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and only for children 14 to fish for the trout. Each angler is allowed a daily catch of up to five trout from April 8 to Nov. 30.