I fly-fished with my friend Jenni last night. I had REALLY hoped to get her a grass carp last night. Had some follows, but no hook-ups. BUMMER! But she also wanted to catch a bass. So, I put a bass popper on her leader, told here where to stand, where to cast. She walked down the rocks to the water's edge, had the fly resting on the water while she adjusted her feet to some "comfortable rocks"...and a bass took the popper right in front of her! She was VERY happy!

She let me catch the next one, which I estimated at 17":

She fished for more bass, and had something BIG on for a solid minute...maybe 2, but it eventually broke her line. Later on, she spotted the popper floating, and was able to cast out and retrieve it!

I fished for the grass carp for much of the time, but finally switched to bluegills and hybrid sunfish. I was catching them within seconds of the fly landing in the water. San Juan worm worked really good.

While fighting a 7” bluegill on my fly rod, I saw something chase the fish near shore, so I let it swim and struggle a bit longer…and the bigger fish grabbed it. He then swam slowly but directly to the complete opposite side of the pond while I fed line. After a minute or so over there, he started swimming back along one edge of the pond, and I started retrieving line. He got into an area where I was concerned he might tangle me up in some cables, so I started putting pressure on him. He started fighting. I was concerned the bluegill was just still in his mouth, and that he would spit it out. But, I landed it! Just the very tip of the bluegill’s tail was sticking out of the bass’s throat. I tried to gently pull the bluegill out of the bass’s stomach, but it wasn’t going to come out easy (thanks to the bluegill’s dorsal spines!), so I just cut my line and let the bass keep his meal. Pretty cool! I measured it at 19"!

Then we started talking about how she really wanted to catch a catfish, and wondered what fly would work best. I explained how I usually just catch them while fly-fishing for bluegills. And then I caught one!