Personally, I don't fish opening day any more, I stopped about 5 years ago, when I hooked into a massive brown trout( brood stock ) at Salmon River, and some ( fisherman ) actually helped me not to land it!!!!
I won't go into depth, but it was a bad scene, and it happened right in front of my 14 year old son, who is a big trout fisherman as well. Pretty much after the line was ( Broke ) and the fish got away, this group of guys said, oh well... we want to catch that fish, besides we were here first!! It's everyone for themselves. I was totally amazed at this attitude!!! I couldn't, and still can't imagine it. So, I don't personally care if there is an opening day or not! But, I do realize that the eve of opening day is like Christmas eve for the sporting goods, and bait stores, and I wouldn't want to take that away from them. I used to enjoy the excitiment of opening day, the occult following opening day gets, and everything that goes along with it....but not anymore! Maybe, there will be a time I'm over this... But, I know that after opening day when I approach other anglers, it is alot different than it was that day. There is respect, and friendship.... the last opening day I went out I didn't see too much of that, and that my friends is pretty darn sad.