There was a story told around hunting camps in Maine. Some guy from New Jersey had a lifelong dream of owning a remote lodge there after he and his wife retired. They bought a piece of property on a lake and built a small log cabin, using trees they felled and stripped of bark.

The man found he loved working with lumber and also built a long kitchen table, painstakingly sanded and oiled. One day, while they were eating lunch at that table, his wife laid her utensils down on either side of her plate. Without a word, she left the table, donned hat, coat and gloves, and left.They say she got a ride from the first logging truck headed south, and that she kept heading generally south, and east, until she was back in New Jersey. After I lived through seven Maine winters, I could better understand the sentiment. Sometimes, when you have to jump out a bedroom window so you can shovel the snow away from your back door, it just gets old.I'd never tried ice fishing when I lived in Pennsylvania, and my first sighting of numerous pickup trucks parked on ice made me nervous. But the ice can be two feet thick. Soon I had built an ice fishing shack and had all the gear needed. Even with the shack, conditions were often fairly miserable - the steady wind, the extreme cold and the colorless landscape.Then one day I pulled a huge rainbow trout out of Worthley Pond. The colors were unbelievable. I knelt on the ice and held it for just a moment on my cumbersome black gloves, admiring it. I thought that sometimes just witnessing one of the great beauties of nature is enough to give you hope of better times to come. I thought that maybe that lady that ran back to New Jersey never hunted or fished while she was in Maine.Rainbow trout are so named because of their colors, in particular the long reddish stripe that stretches laterally along their sides. Like the rainbow, to me that day was a symbol of hope, and even, the sacredness of life. When I learned of Schuylkill County Trout Unlimited's Memorial Rainbow Trout Releases, I thought the venture was an awesome idea.For a donation of $25, you can honor the memory of a loved one with a special release of a large rainbow trout. SCTU will use three locations: The Little Schuylkill River in New Ringgold at the Rip Rap Hole (10:30 a.m.); the Little Schuylkill River on Route 309 across from the Jeep Dealer in Tamaqua (noon); and the Lower Little Swatara Creek near Pine Grove (3 p.m.)."Last year was our first year, and we had 23 participants," said SCTU's John Bondura. "When we release the fish, we say the person's name that it is for; if the person who purchased the fish is there, they do the release."Last year, Bondura bought a fish in memory of his father. SCTU also buys a fish for any of their members who have passed away.The rainbow trout are "gigunda" fish, Bondura said, ranging from 22 to 25 inches long."We heard from people who were catching them into February," he said. "It's an idea that was brought up at one of our board meetings, and it's a great idea - gets people outdoors and is a really nice way to honor someone's memory."To arrange for a release, please call John Bondura 570-640-5300 or email

jgbond@verizon.net.