Dad Talal and son Kadin had long wanted to learn how to fly fish, so into my boat and onto the Muskegon River they went today. Since neither of them had cast a fly rod, we spent an hour or so teaching the physics of the cast and how to put that knowledge into fish hooking presentations. Both guys listened well, understood what they heard and were shown, and worked hard at getting the cast down. Soon, they were ready to learn where to cast the poppers we with which we started and later how to impart life-like action to the subsurface minnow imitations we fished the rest of the day.
The bite proved poor for much of the day, but for an hour and half, the fish turned on, and both Dad and Kadin hooked and landed their first bass on fly rods. Kadin lost the smallmouth of the day, one that looked to be in that 16-18″ inch class, right at the boat as I prepared to net it. He was disappointed, of course, but since he had landed other smaller bass, he was cool with it. Dad poses one of the few largemouth bass that I’ve seen landed on the MO where we fish, and justifiably proud he was to have done it all by himself with the fly rod.
I warned both guys that our sport is addictive so be prepared to love it and want to equip yourselves with all the gear to fly fish on one’s own. They said they were hoping to love it, which did they ever! They are especially excited about the fact that the skills they learned today, they will use to chase the bass and bluegills in the lake on which they will soon build a new home.
In short, it was a great day and ever so satisfying to win over two great new members of the fly fishing fraternity.
Captain Tom Kuieck
