There are circumstances where bluegill are the perfect fish. They are pretty, hard-fighting, numerous, and sometimes, when you want a fish for a kid who needs something to do, bluegill are unrivaled.
I was that kid this weekend. I recently ordered a pair of new fly rods, along with new reels and line. I picked out the parts I wanted and ordered them from various fly shops and manufacturers. The pieces have been trickling in for the last week.
One rod, an 8-foot, 9-inch 4-weight with medium-fast action, will become my primary trout rod for dries and small nymphs. My 5-weight, the previous No. 1 but more than a decade old, will still get plenty of exercise for bigger-water challenges and more dedicated nymphing, but I wanted something a little lighter for day-to-day use.
That’s where bluegill come into the picture. The nearest trout stream is a day’s drive, and I’ve already used up most of my road-trip time this summer. You can’t go more than a mile or so around here without running into a farm pond full of bluegill, however, and even a small bluegill is feisty enough to put a bend in that 4-weight.
I don’t have the reel and line yet, but the rod has been sitting on the dining room table gleaming at me for days. I also have an older reel strung up with 4-weight line. So, the other morning, I put two and two together and realized they added up to me standing ankle-deep in a pond brimming with 6-inch bluegill, fishing a small yellow popper with my brand-new rod and my old reel.
It was warm and the wind hadn’t yet started to fuss, but the sun was high and bright, promising to turn the day into a scorcher. We had to work fast because I hoped to be under the influence of air conditioning once the temperature broke 90.
The first time a bluegill slammed that little popper, I was either unprepared or the fish never got the hook in its mouth, as it was soon gone. Then another banged the popper and missed. That might have been enough. I was there mostly to get a feel for my new rod. Catching fish seemed oddly secondary.
The rod felt sweet in my hand as it laid 40 feet of line gently on the pond’s surface. It seemed the perfect rod for streams like the Thompson River west of Kalispell or even Rogers Lake and its population of sporty grayling. Yet it still has the backbone for bigger trout, the 16- to 18-inch fish that are often the highlight of a Montana float trip. We dream of 20- or 30-inch trout, and sometimes think we’ve bagged one, until we place it against that infallible trout-shrinking device, also known as a ruler.
Eventually, one of those bluegill got its mouth around the popper. During the brief fight, my 4-weight seemed the perfect fly rod for a prairie bluegill pond. It arced gracefully in the direction of the head-shaking fish, which made sharp, darting runs that were only a few feet, not even a yard long, but thrilling, nonetheless. I got a few fish that hit as I stripped the popper, and a 10-inch bass followed it for a tantalizing moment but eventually declined.
The fish didn’t seem too interested in the stripped popper, however, so I let it sit. That provoked angry bluegill to attack, repeatedly.
I fished for less than an hour but answered the big questions I’d pondered that morning. Would the 4-weight cast like a dream? Are bluegill still as much fun as when I was 12? Is it OK to get off the water when the needle passes 90 racing toward 100, even when the fish are still biting?
And catching fish is never secondary, right?
The answer was a resounding yes on all counts.