I've been fly fishing most of my life. Being from central Ohio, most of that was on farm ponds. Farm ponds are just a great fishing resource when your time is limited. Several of my local neighbors have nice ponds. The best part is; they are nice enough to let me fish them when I can.
I love to fish. I love to catch fish about anyway I can, but in particular, I love to fly fish. Bass and panfish on the fly are great fun. When I only have an hour or so to cast, nothing is more satisfying than casting flies with a light weight rod and catching bluegill one after the other. Such was the case on this evening...with one exception.I made my way across the street to Brian's pond. He was out riding his dirt bikes with a few friends behind the pond area. One of his buddies had brought a his son whom was 7. For the life of me, I cannot remember the little chaps name. We'll call him Kevin.
Kevin was tired of watching the fellas ride their dirt bikes, so he started following me around the pond. About the time he started following me, Brian stops along side. He shut down the bike and says to Kevin, "You pay real close attention to this guy Kevin, he's practically a professional fisherman." Nothing like a little pressure...thanks Brian.
Kevin immediately says, "Wow, a real professional fisherman. I've never met a professional fisherman." I assured Kevin that I was not a professional fisherman, but we would try to catch some fish nonetheless.
I was casting a small white popper with my 5/6 wt rod and 5x tippet. It was really overkill, but my 2 and 4 wt were not rigged up and I was chomping at the bit to get fishing. It did not take long to start catching the 8 1/2" bluegill that are typical of Brian's pond. They are not monsters, but a nice size to catch and enjoy...even with a rod that was a little large.
The sun was starting to set and I told Kevin I would make a few more casts and then head home. He seemed disappointed. On the next cast, I placed the little white popper about 3-4 feet out in front of those cattails and began working him towards the tails. On the next pop, it appeared as though a toilet flushed under my fly and the little bug disappeared with the splash of a rather large tail. BZZZZZZZZZZZZ. The drag was screaming and I knew I had hooked into something nice.
I make a point of fishing with barbless hooks when I fish at other people's ponds. It's just a gesture of respect, so as not to harm their fish. I feared that was going to work against me in this situation. I started to reel a little to work that big boy over my way. Of course he indicated his displeasure with the situation by jumping straight out of the water and shaking his head. His huge head, I might add. I knew I had a decent fish, but I did not realize he was this good.
I tried to let him run a little more while keeping pressure on him. I would gently reel and coerce him to come my direction occasionally, but he returned the favor with wild jumps every time. All I could imagine was that barbless hook zinging back at me during one of those jumps. After a few minutes he began getting tired. The warm summertime water takes the fight out of them pretty quickly. I was finally able to land my prize.
Kevin was frantic. This was the largest fish he had ever seen. He says, "Brian was right, you are a professional fisherman." Brian and Kevin's dad both saw the fish from their bikes and came over to inspect the old boy. He was 21" long and about 5 1/4lbs.
Kevin was nice enough to snap a picture with the camera on my cell phone. Thanks Kevin! You can be the 1st mate on any of my fishing trips if we keep getting results like that.
I now had my 2nd species of Fish Ohio sized fish for the season. This set the stage for my quest for the remainder of the year. Ohio grants fisherman with a Master Fisherman's Award if they catch 4 species of fish that qualify for the Fish Ohio Award in 1 year. 2 down and 2 to go. I figured my best bets were pursue bluegill, catfish, rock bass, and smallies to complete the quest. Let the fun begin!
