Spring tradition continues with trout season’s opening at Seidel’s Sanctuary

Posted 4/16/14

No longer can you find the Phenix Sportsmen’s Club’s once-popular Chuck Wagon setting up shop in Fiskeville on the second Saturday in April to serve breakfast to over 300 kids.

No longer does …

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Spring tradition continues with trout season’s opening at Seidel’s Sanctuary

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No longer can you find the Phenix Sportsmen’s Club’s once-popular Chuck Wagon setting up shop in Fiskeville on the second Saturday in April to serve breakfast to over 300 kids.

No longer does the Seidel family host its Trout Fishing Derby that once featured bicycle raffles, a variety of fishing gear and mega-prizes.

Yes, the years pass, but one constant remains – the place for kids to fish on opening day of Rhode Island’s Trout Fishing Season is Seidel’s Sanctuary, the picturesque waterhole that sits atop a small hill in Cranston’s Fiskeville village.

Seidel’s Sanctuary is also stocked by the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM) each year, yet the rules are strict as far as anglers are concerned.

Seidel’s Sanctuary is only for children age 14, accompanied by a parent or guardian.

For kids like Olivia Harris, 9, and her brother Michael, 13, the early morning stillness and sparkling sun was a perfect setting Saturday.

For Vincent Morgan, 3, Seidel’s Sanctuary was the perfect place for his first-ever fishing expedition.

For Emily Pepin, 13, Seidel’s Sanctuary was like home on Saturday, her fifth straight trout season opening day.

For Kayleigh Amiot, 9, who simply “loves fishing,” the early morning trek to Seidel’s provided a picture-perfect setting.

“Kids have been coming here for years,” said Rick Harris, Olivia and Michael’s father who doubles as a Cranston school teacher and head basketball coach at the Community College of Rhode Island. “This is our second stop this morning.”

Harris, who once fished Seidel’s as a youngster, and his children were up in the early morning hours Saturday heading for Frosty Hollow Pond in the Arcadia Management Area in Exeter where Olivia – a third-grader at Oaklawn Elementary School – reeled in two good-sized brook trout.

Upon their arrival at Seidel’s Saturday, Olivia and Michael, a seventh-grader at Immaculate Conception Regional Catholic, didn’t waste time casting their lines with assistance from their father.

Within a minute, there was excitement as Olivia hooked a fish and was reeling it in – only to lose what would have been her third catch of the day at the last second.

“You’ll get one, Olivia,” Rich said to his unfazed daughter, as Michael made several casts into the deep middle part of Seidel’s Sanctuary.

The morning’s bragging rights to that point belonged to Emily Pepin, an eighth-grader at Coventry Middle School who enjoys fishing with her mother Shawna.

Emily had four brookies that were flopping in the water until she was asked to hold up her prize catch for an awaiting photographer.

Meanwhile, Kayleigh Amiot – a fourth-grader at Hope Elementary School – didn’t seem to mind not yet having a catch, as she was enjoying the special day with her father Mark.

As for Vincent Morgan, just having his first fishing pole – courtesy of his grandparents Roland and Lori Harel – created a scene that has been repeated time and again at Seidel’s Sanctuary, the place for kids to be when Rhode Island’s trout season officially opens at 6 a.m. on an early spring morning.

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