My job has me mostly sitting behind a desk in the East Metro, answering calls and emails.\u00a0 By the time lunch rolls around I’ve had enough screen time so I generally leave the office for an hour.\u00a0 Depending on the weather and my mood I may\u00a0 I walk the neighborhood around the office, maybe checking out some landscape rock at local businesses for agates.\u00a0 [“What are you doing?” a lady once yelled at me from the front door of an industrial supply business as I stared intently at the rocks surrounding some shrubs.\u00a0 When I replied “just looking for agates” her look was somewhere between between confusion and relief, she walked back inside shaking here head.]<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0This summer I’ve gotten in a bunch of lunch hour fishing sessions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>I’ve been know to bring tackle with me to work before, this year I often have a favorite old rod in the truck.\u00a0 It’s a 6′ 3″ fiberglass from the 70’s–Berkely Parametric Curt Gowdy Signature Series.\u00a0 ![\"IMG_3137\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_3137-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0It casts a 6 weight line.\u00a0 I got it when I was about 10.\u00a0 How I came to get this rod is a story in itself.\u00a0 My mom was a nightclub singer, she must have told one of her fans that she had a kid that liked to fish.\u00a0 The guy went out to the parking lot and came back with the fly rod as well as a matching spinning rod, both with reels.\u00a0 Mom had me write a thank you letter to the guy, who I imagine was a factory sales rep.\u00a0 She joked that he was probably drunk and the letter would at least clue him in to where his missing samples went.\u00a0 The spinning rod is long gone, but the fly rod has always been with me, I even put a new cork grip and reel seat on it at some point.\u00a0 The rod is nothing special as far as how it casts, but on my lunchtime fishing missions I have pretty low expectations, so this rod fits the bill.\u00a0 Besides it is so short that it fits in the pickup without taking it apart, and it maneuvers well in the brushy confines of “Lunch Creek”, one of my favorite spots.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a>\u00a0It casts a 6 weight line.\u00a0 I got it when I was about 10.\u00a0 How I came to get this rod is a story in itself.\u00a0 My mom was a nightclub singer, she must have told one of her fans that she had a kid that liked to fish.\u00a0 The guy went out to the parking lot and came back with the fly rod as well as a matching spinning rod, both with reels.\u00a0 Mom had me write a thank you letter to the guy, who I imagine was a factory sales rep.\u00a0 She joked that he was probably drunk and the letter would at least clue him in to where his missing samples went.\u00a0 The spinning rod is long gone, but the fly rod has always been with me, I even put a new cork grip and reel seat on it at some point.\u00a0 The rod is nothing special as far as how it casts, but on my lunchtime fishing missions I have pretty low expectations, so this rod fits the bill.\u00a0 Besides it is so short that it fits in the pickup without taking it apart, and it maneuvers well in the brushy confines of “Lunch Creek”, one of my favorite spots.<\/span><\/div>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
This creek won’t show on most maps, it winds through a combination of industrial, residential, and park areas, forgotten or at least ignored by most.\u00a0 It eventually flows into a lake that is know to have good fishing.\u00a0 One day last spring I decided to check it out, and I was nicely surprised to see that there were indeed some fish in there.\u00a0 Mostly panfish.\u00a0 Mostly small.\u00a0 But a few good sized ones, as well as some bass, pike, and other fish.\u00a0 I’m sure these fish move up here with high water in the spring.\u00a0 I have a few different access points that I use, and the drill typically goes like this: leave work at 12, cram my lunch down my face while driving, walk 5 minutes to the fishing area, fish for about 40 minutes and then back to work.\u00a0 Some days I catch nothing.\u00a0 Some days I catch more than I can count, especially if I go to a small fly that will allow the 4″ sunfish to eat it.\u00a0 Mostly I stick with the reliable woolly bugger, size 8.\u00a0 Small enough to catch sunfish, perhaps big enough to tempt a larger game fish.\u00a0 My session usually ends with me checking the time on my phone, realizing should have quit 5 minutes earlier and hightailing it back to the parking lot.\u00a0 As I said, my expectations are low, but at least I get to spend an hour when I don’t have to think about Eugene from Michigan who called twice this morning, or Donald from Portland who just can’t figure out if he should send his broken unit back for repairs or start over with a new one, or Virgil from Green Bay who is unable to tell me his address and has to get his wife on the phone to provide the information.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The fun started in May, my go-to spot produced a little pike right away, that somehow managed to look like a trout while I was fighting it.\u00a0 There’s a variety of fish in here, no trout though.![\"IMG_6017\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6017-1-300x225.jpg\")
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A\u00a0mixed bag of panfish is mostly what I catch here, including bluegills, pumpkinseeds, green sunfish, and crappies.\u00a0 While most are small, I have caught bluegills up to 8″ and crappies to 10″.![\"IMG_6018\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6018-300x225.jpg\")
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There is one spot that for some reason is all perch.\u00a0 I don’t catch any perch in any other spot in the creek, and almost no sunfish in the perch hole![\"IMG_6054\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6054-300x225.jpg\")
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It takes a truly skilled angler to catch a bullhead on a fly![\"IMG_6206\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6206-300x225.jpg\")
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Even more skill required to catch a golden shiner![\"IMG_6211\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6211-300x225.jpg\")
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Lunker Largemouth![\"IMG_6208\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6208-300x225.jpg\")
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I won’t go out of my way to fish for carp, but if the opportunity arises I’ll make some casts.\u00a0 These guys were cruising around, mostly in spots where making a cast was not possible.\u00a0 Eventually one went into a more open area, and it would take an impressive roll-cast [with a 6′ fly rod] to get the fly in front of one.\u00a0![\"IMG_6262\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6262-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a> I underestimated my awesome roll-cast abilities, overshot the cast and ended up hooking it in the dorsal fin.\u00a0 Argh.\u00a0 Somehow the hook came out.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a> I underestimated my awesome roll-cast abilities, overshot the cast and ended up hooking it in the dorsal fin.\u00a0 Argh.\u00a0 Somehow the hook came out.<\/span><\/div>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
One of the best spots is where the creek comes out from an overpass through some grated culverts.\u00a0 I usually cast up at the culverts an work the fly back.\u00a0 One day I mixed it up and fished right off the culvert, and ended my session by catching two largemouths.\u00a0 They weren’t that big by my usual standards, but were way better than average for the creek.![\"IMG_6260\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6260-300x225.jpg\")
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There’s smallmouth in here too.\u00a0 I’ve spotted some good sized ones, the only one I’ve caught was this little guy![\"IMG_6293\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6293-225x300.jpg\")
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Walleye on a fly?\u00a0 In the Metro?\u00a0 In a creek?\u00a0 In the summertime?![\"IMG_6294\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6294-300x225.jpg\")
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Most of the bass I run into here range from small to extra small.\u00a0 I’ve spotted a few large ones, and despite my ultra-stealthy presentation of a #8 woolly bugger on 5X tippet they have mostly shied away from my casts.\u00a0 One day, a blind cast to a shady spot above a log jam resulted in a fairly violent strike. When you consider that most of the fish I catch here are 6″ sunfish, you’ll understand why when I first saw this fish I thought it was an eight-pounder.\u00a0 As I was fighting it I thought about the little fly and especially the 5X tippet that has been tied on there for a year, maybe two, maybe more.\u00a0 With the rod bent to the cork I kept as much pressure on as I dared and somehow the fish didn’t take me into the logs. It stayed in the open and jumped a couple of times, after a better look and a decreased heart rate I downgraded my estimate to five pounds.\u00a0 ![\"IMG_6296\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6296-225x300.jpg\")
<\/a>After a couple of minutes I had it beat and I had to get on my belly on the high bank I was standing on to lip it.\u00a0 I now realized my eight pounder was really about\u00a0 three and a half, still a nice largemouth, and probably the biggest fish I’ve caught on the 40+ year old fly rod.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a>After a couple of minutes I had it beat and I had to get on my belly on the high bank I was standing on to lip it.\u00a0 I now realized my eight pounder was really about\u00a0 three and a half, still a nice largemouth, and probably the biggest fish I’ve caught on the 40+ year old fly rod.<\/span><\/div>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
I really didn’t think I could top the big largemouth, but the next week something really crazy happened.\u00a0 A big storm has raised the water level by a foot or more, and apparently this high water brought in some new fish from the lake.\u00a0 Sightseers, maybe?\u00a0 Anyway I’m fishing around, catching the usual suspects [including this handsome green sunfish] ![\"IMG_6318\"](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_6318-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a>when a good sized fish, a pike, or maybe a muskie cruises downstream past me.\u00a0 This fish was two feet long or better, and it was followed by a MUCH larger specimen, that was definitely a muskie of about 40″.\u00a0 It cruised by less than 10 feet from me.\u00a0 At this particular spot there is only one opening in the trees to roll-cast through and the two fish cruised down a ways and then rested on a shallow flat.\u00a0 The water there was only a foot deep, I could see them the whole time. But no way to get a cast at them.\u00a0 After a couple of minutes they were on the move again, and disappeared into some slightly deeper water.\u00a0 They were moving in a way that led me to believe they would show up again in my small casting window.\u00a0 Sure enough there’s the big head, followed by the rest.\u00a0 I make the roll cast and the fly lands a foot past and two feet in front of the big fish.\u00a0 Remember the fly is a 2-inch woolly bugger.\u00a0 The same one in the green sunfish’s mouth in the photo above. Tied onto a 5X tippet.\u00a0 The fish spotted the fly, followed it as I stripped it towards me, flared its gills AND ATE IT!\u00a0 I pulled tight and I imagined I heard the fiberglass creak as the rod bent like never before.\u00a0 I had no expectation of landing the fish, even in open water it would be very questionable with the tackle I was using.\u00a0 At least it was a new 5x tippet, I had to retie the day before after losing a bugger to an unseen limb.\u00a0 5X is what I normally use while casting dry flies at 10″ trout.\u00a0 Now I’ve got 15 lbs of very pissed off muskie connected.\u00a0 I fumbled for my phone, somehow got the video rolling just to have some actual record of this crazy encounter.\u00a0 I probably could have kept the fish hooked up longer, but I was pulling kind of hard, trying to get a good shot of the fish’s side.\u00a0 Obviously it didn’t last long.\u00a0 The line parted with a sickening snap, I just laughed and headed for the truck.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a>when a good sized fish, a pike, or maybe a muskie cruises downstream past me.\u00a0 This fish was two feet long or better, and it was followed by a MUCH larger specimen, that was definitely a muskie of about 40″.\u00a0 It cruised by less than 10 feet from me.\u00a0 At this particular spot there is only one opening in the trees to roll-cast through and the two fish cruised down a ways and then rested on a shallow flat.\u00a0 The water there was only a foot deep, I could see them the whole time. But no way to get a cast at them.\u00a0 After a couple of minutes they were on the move again, and disappeared into some slightly deeper water.\u00a0 They were moving in a way that led me to believe they would show up again in my small casting window.\u00a0 Sure enough there’s the big head, followed by the rest.\u00a0 I make the roll cast and the fly lands a foot past and two feet in front of the big fish.\u00a0 Remember the fly is a 2-inch woolly bugger.\u00a0 The same one in the green sunfish’s mouth in the photo above. Tied onto a 5X tippet.\u00a0 The fish spotted the fly, followed it as I stripped it towards me, flared its gills AND ATE IT!\u00a0 I pulled tight and I imagined I heard the fiberglass creak as the rod bent like never before.\u00a0 I had no expectation of landing the fish, even in open water it would be very questionable with the tackle I was using.\u00a0 At least it was a new 5x tippet, I had to retie the day before after losing a bugger to an unseen limb.\u00a0 5X is what I normally use while casting dry flies at 10″ trout.\u00a0 Now I’ve got 15 lbs of very pissed off muskie connected.\u00a0 I fumbled for my phone, somehow got the video rolling just to have some actual record of this crazy encounter.\u00a0 I probably could have kept the fish hooked up longer, but I was pulling kind of hard, trying to get a good shot of the fish’s side.\u00a0 Obviously it didn’t last long.\u00a0 The line parted with a sickening snap, I just laughed and headed for the truck.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n