Fly anglers take ourselves far too seriously at times. How do you go from catching a big farm pond bass on a popper and thinking it’s the greatest thing in the world, to looking down on simple fly fishing because you’ve experienced salmon, steelhead, or maybe had a big tarpon make a reel scream?
Somehow, the bigger fly fishing thrills we accumulate through the years can begin to dwarf those simpler experiences. An invisible threshold gets crossed, and something that was once great fun with a fly rod suddenly becomes nothing special.
Yet, even after all my years on the water, I still remember those farm pond bass caught on a cheap fiberglass fly rod and an even cheaper reel.
Recently, on a trip to Ohio to see family, we stopped at a KOA campground for the night. There was a fishing pond there, and after spending most of the day behind the wheel towing the Airstream, I needed a break. I was officially off duty for the day, so I grabbed a fly rod with the simple idea of unwinding and maybe catching a bluegill or two.
I had a pack of flies with me that I’d tied for a panfish series on my YouTube channel. I pulled out a Maddin’s Foam Scorpion popper, tied it onto the leader of one of my favorite trout rods, and walked down to the pond.
Since the pond was part of the campground, the shoreline was mowed and easy to walk and fish. The panfish were staging well off the bank, though, so it took a fairly long cast to reach them.
Before long, I was catching bluegills and having a lot of fun. A little evening fly fishing on a pond for panfish certainly wasn’t boring, and it was a pretty good way to relax after towing a trailer for the better part of a day.
As I worked my way toward the shallower end of the pond, I started seeing the occasional fish grab something off the surface. This section was a little brushier, and finding the right place to cast wasn’t easy. Eventually, I managed to put that little popper right where I wanted it.
Wham!
This was no bluegill.
And remember, I was fishing a trout rod.
It wasn’t a giant by largemouth standards, but it was a nice bass and plenty of fish on the tackle I was using. After a good fight, I brought it in.
I admired its golden sides and dark green stripe along the lateral line for a moment before slipping it back into the water.
I went on to catch several more largemouths that evening before finally calling it quits and walking back to the Airstream.
Later, sitting at the table with a beer, I realized just how much I had enjoyed that evening.
No monsters. No special techniques. No complicated plan.
Just a few flies, a rod and reel, and a pond.
More importantly, it had been every bit as much fun as fishing for steelhead or casting a fly in some faraway trophy destination.
That evening was a good reminder that sometimes we need to stop chasing the next big fly fishing adventure and simply enjoy the fishing that’s right in front of us.
As I write this, my favorite smallmouth stream is a blown-out mess and probably won’t be fishable for more than a week, assuming we don’t get more rain. It’s midsummer, and trout fishing is out of the question when streams aren’t consistently staying within a safe temperature range.
That’s okay. I have a plan.
My next outing will be on the boat at a nearby largemouth lake. The tactics will be different from what I normally use, and a different set of skills will come into play. There probably won’t be any steelhead, salmon, tarpon, or trophy destination involved.
But I’ll bet it will be every bit as much fun.
Sometimes the best thing we can do as fly anglers is stop measuring one fishing experience against another. A bluegill on a popper, a largemouth on a trout rod, or an evening spent working the edge of a campground pond can remind us why we picked up a fly rod in the first place.
It doesn’t always have to be bigger or better.
Sometimes it just has to be fishing.