Backyard Bass

 

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Ryan's consolation for the big one that busted him off.
Ryan’s consolation for the big one that busted him off.

Jen Ripple in her “Fish Chick” column of our monthly RiverQuest Charters/Muskegon River Lodge Newsletter, challenges us to fish our fly rods on waters close to home and not just on trips to storied waters such our beloved Muskegon or the Pere Marquette.  It’s great advice but one too often we fail to heed.  I live on a man-made lake in the city of Grandville, and only this week fished it for the first time this year. Shame on me!

Our lake is connected to another section of the lake via a large roadway culvert, spacious enough for small boat passage.  My youngest son Ryan had been raving about the bass in the lake: fat, strong, and willing.  So, today, after church and the Sunday meal, we climbed into his buddy’s antique Aqua Swan 11′ 6″ boat and electric trolled our way into the lake.

Just as Jen promised, there, within five minutes of my home, albeit by water, Ryan and I experienced a memorable afternoon of bass fishing—in my case, with a 10′ 8 wt. fly rod loaded with an Orvis floating bass bug taper floating line.  Ryan had told to leave the long rod home: “These bass want subsurface stuff, and you can’t throw a sinking line from the Aqua Swan, ” he insisted.  Uh, nope!  For me, of course, it was going to be the fly rod or no trip, and it would be on top to boot.

Well, not only did my chartreuse bass bug outperform his plastic jerk bait, but I knew really had him going when he started mumbling something about having needed to bring some chartreuse colored plastics!  Love it when the long rod blows the coffee grinder off the water!  All in good fun, to be sure! In short, we shared a wonderful afternoon together that we would have missed had we not fished our backyard per Jen’s admonition.

So, grab your stick; hit that local lake, pond, or stream; and pound up some bass or gills.  You’ll have a great time, sharpen your fly fishing skills, and maybe even prompt a smile from Jen.