Fly fishing strategy
THE WAY OF A BASS FISHERMAN WITH A FLY ROD AND THE WAY OF A BASS WITH A FLY
WADING A STREAM
IDEAL FISHING
THE ideal way to fish a bass stream, if its depth and bottom will permit, is to wade. Some one has said that Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Certainly then, wading the stream is the artist's way of fishing for Micropterus. It has all the charm of trout fishing and all of its thrills and seldom is so lonesome since many of our bass streams are in settled districts. One often fishes a stream and is never out of hearing of the cow bells and the barking of friendly farm dogs but is in the wilderness nevertheless. When the angler wades he becomes a part of the stream and its life and the more he fishes a fine stretch of water the friendlier it becomes.
Bass and Flies
One reason I believe bass fly fishermen are not as generally successful as their trout fishing brethren is because the bass fisher, as a class, has not put as much study into his fish, his waters and his methods. This is not to be wondered at when you consider that fly fishing for bass is, compared with trouting, in its first tooth stage. In other words, if some anglers loudly proclaim that the east wind bloweth when they are bassing with flies it is due, not to the bass but to the angler.
True one seldom gets the big, old, granddaddy bass of 'em all on a fly, neither do the bigger trout come to the net by the same route, but the average of the stream or lake can be caught on flies and are on certain waters. Is it entirely because of certain local peculiarities of fish, water or conditions that fly fishing for bass is practiced so successfully on such widely separated waters as, to mention a few: the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers in the Middle West; the Susquehanna, Potomac and Delaware in the East; the Current and St. Francis in the Ozarks; the Belgrade Lakes in Maine? I think not. Bass fly fishing has long been practiced and studied in these places, hence the success.
Aside from its beauty and charm wading a stream makes for success. In the first place a stream that is of wadable depth is ideal for fly fishing and the angler, moving slowly and quietly, with only a portion of his body above water is, as old Dennys put it, less likely to "offend the fearful Fish's eye."
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