It's Friday morning, March 4, 2005. Have you been fishing this week? Do you know where your gear is?

Yesterday was lovely in Longmont, Colorado and I'm going to be honest. Joe stopped in the night before to say he'd been to a local warm water impoundment and had caught two smallmouth bass and one yellow perch. He had pictures, too. We decided we'd go around one-o'clock yesterday. and did. Jay and Ellie, Joe's yellow lab, came along.

We rigged up with 5- and 6-weight rods and Joe brought his crawdad pattern, which had worked the day before. We used floating lines and leaders that tapered to about 3X or so, then a little tippet of about 3X as well.

When fishing small ponds here you have to watch the back cast. There are small trees, fences and other fly-grabbing items waiting to eat flies, leaders and fly lines. It's a good way to practice back casts.

Joe had a cast in the water. He'd told us that the fly had to sink and be moved very slowly, but this was ridiculous. I'm not sure what he was doing, but his rod was on the ground, the fly was in the water, and he looked over and his rod was moving off the ground into the water. When he picked it up, a fish was attached to the other end.

"Fox fur is always working," he said, a big grin on his face. He landed the smallmouth bass after a good tussle and Jay and I did the appropriate amount of ooing and ahing. A minute later, Jay hooked into something pretty good. He thought it was another smallie, but when he landed the fish, low and behold it was a yellow perch! Lovely to behold, too.

Jay and I both grew up in northern Ohio, and we know our yellow perch. At least we think we know them! This was the most colorful fish of this species I've ever seen, and Jay said the same thing. What do you think?

And fat? I think they must be spawning in that lake.

The air was calm and the sun warm. We didn't see any fish cruising or anything like that; they seemed to be deep and took the fly slowly, but with confidence. It was true, what Joe had said, about the fly needing to be deep and moved slowly.

About five minutes after the perch, Jay hooked another fish. This time he sang out, "Now this one's a smallmouth!"

And it was. A good one, too, as you can clearly see.

We all agreed that fishing for smallmouth bass with a fly rod is a good thing, and that we'd have to get out and do this again.

If you have your own story or report and would like to mention it here, please let me know and I'll post it for you. Dale Darling