Good thread Mooch,
here's my $.02

I grew up around Mineral Lake, one of the prime opening day circus spectacles in the state! We moved there when I was 11 and that first year was a real eye opener...a 200+ acre lake that you could walk across on the boats...Know a guy that did it too,About 1983, he explained to folks what he was doing and made it all the way to the north end and back in about 4 hours(A prime example of why not to spend more than 2-3 hrs in the Mineral Tavern). Boat trailers lining the mineral hill road for the better part of a mile and a half. Fireworks, capsizings, gunshots, dogbites, dogfights, fistfights, drownings, drunks, car wrecks...the list goes on and on...
When I got a little older and learned to dive I could figure on 4 or 5 drunk morons every year spinning their outboards off their transoms. Made really good money for several years. Not to mention all the parties and drinking and girls camping with their families...well you get the idea
I left in 1986 and to tell the truth, I don't miss it at all. anymore I hear the words opening day and I head the other direction. I went down to Coulon Sat. morning just to scope it out and could not believe the mess , we did not even go out in the boat this weekend. I guess I just don't have the patience for that kind of thing anymore, I put up with it all week and by the time the weekend rolls around I want to get the hell away from everyone. So we did a B'day party with freinds and a keg of Mac & Jacks African and BBQ'd Blackmouth...
Oh and speaking of lakes that are open year round...Riffe and Mayfield used to be pretty good on opening day too. Although they are both quite a bit bigger so it dosen't seem so crowded. My brother in law is an operator at the Cowlitz falls dam, I guess Scanawea was kinda fun this year too.
The ones that always puzzled me were Packwood Lake and Horseshoe. Why in the he!! would so many folks drive so far from the metro area into the woods to be packed in like sardines around a lake in the "wilderness" with umpteen thousand other Idiots that drove 3 hours to "get away from it all"