Summer Rock Bass

Recently I left a comment on Brian's blog

.....This creek was my boyhood fishing playground for many years. I learned to fly fish on this creek. Summers, in the evening, I'd cast royal coachman to rock bass and sunfish. I will never forget the time I was casting side arm just off the top water and a Rock bass jumped out of the water and caught my fly in mid cast. I would never had believed it, but this little creek holds great secrets known only to NY residents who fish it regularly......

Which got me to thinking about how it. How much I would enjoy some summer fly fishing for rock bass.

Yesterday, I took the day off from work to go to Garnargua Creek. My wife and I were hoping to get out early, but the morning hours passed quickly. We were at the creek about 10:00 am. I waded in shorts, Kim was in breathables and we hiked through the woods to a spot where the creek has plenty of promise. The water was clear and we spotted crayfish and flashes in the creek. We arrived at a fishing hole I remembered had produced in the past. Before long we had both caught a half dozen sunfish and rock bass on wet flies. Kim set up for dry fly fishing and she concentrated on keeping the slack out of the line. It was great to see the rock bass position themselves downstream of the fly and then strike. Kim got a lot of practice time in fishing drys. We used barbless flys and released all. Before the morning ended, we had unhooked 20 or so nice panfish including two smallies. The next thing I'll get her excited about is removing the fish she catches from her own hooks.