May 26, 2012
I heard it all the time in
the fly shop in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Now I hear the statement frequently during
the winter when speaking about fly fishing at shows, “There’s no fly fishing
where I come from”. Actually, unless you
live on the moon, that declaration is the biggest bunch of bologna in fly
fishing. Even if you live in the heart
of a city, a filthy sector of city for that matter, I guarantee you at least have
some warmwater fly fishing near you. It
could be for carp, bass or some specie of panfish. So what if they aren’t trout? Personally, I treat all fish the same and I
always find fly fishing no matter where I’m at on the planet.
All my cousins arrived at
camp last night here in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. My cousins and I grew up together like
brothers and sisters. We did all the
holidays together at the grandparents house and fished and played together all
summer. I haven’t seen any of them in
years so as you might expect, last night was a late one catching up on the
screen porch. I did my best to throw
some flies for smallmouth bass from the canoe around camp at 6 AM today but was
unsuccessful.
I planned on paddling to Back Bay with one of my cousins, but at 11 AM, still not
one cuz was awake yet. I may have stayed
up late last night but I can’t sleep past about 7. Therefore, before noon I grabbed my sister Becky
and we took off for Back Bay in hopes for a good afternoon of fishing similar
to what Greg and I experienced yesterday morning.
Let’s just say there are good
fishing days and bad ones. It’s true,
sometimes the fish just aren’t biting. Usually
mid day under hot sun is slow, but you may remember Becky and I went to Back Bay on Wednesday at mid day and fishing was decent. Today it simply wasn’t. However, when fishing is bad you make the
best of it. I do what I can to catch a
few fish, so today Becky and I targeted some panfish. Panfish are always cooperative.
I instructed Becky to start
tossing a Chernobyl ant around the weeds, under docks and even in open boat houses and twitch it. A big bass or pickerel wouldn’t likely nail
it but rock bass, perch and various sunfish will. Sure enough the panfish fish came.
First Becky caught this
yellow perch. The beautifully striped
fish was a welcome sight because Lake Winnipesaukee
doesn’t have nearly the numbers of perch it did when I was growing up. Then she caught numerous rock bass, one after
another. As she was reeling those neat
looking red-eyes in, I noticed a constant commotion deep amongst the lily pads. I asked Becky to land the Chernobyl as close as possible to the
disturbance. Two seconds later she was
tangled up in the lily pads with this spectacular pumpkinseed sunfish. I say spectacular because here in NH they
rarely get much bigger than three inches.
Take advantage of your fly
fishing opportunities. If trout fishing
is what you love best but it’s far away and you only go once a year, then you
need to find a fish specie near home. Whether
it’s grass carp or sunfish, it’s essential to keep your casting, knot tying and
over all fishy feelings and skills sharp.
And the only way to stay sharp is to go fishing. If it makes you feel any better, I only have
trout fishing where I come from, and that makes me crave many of the fantastic
warmwater fish!
Tomorrow expect an early
morning report from Back Bay - time in NH is
running out.
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