I began fly fishing for bass and pan fish in the ponds and creeks around the farm I grew up on in eastern Texas at the tender age of thirteen. My first rod was a fiberglass Eagle Claw 7 weight. I got it mail order because the local sporting goods store did not carry any fly fishing gear what-so-ever. It came with a 7 weight level line, a single leader, a reel that just barely qualified as something to keep the line on when it wasn’t being used and a dozen assorted popping bugs. Since the outfit came with no instructions, the one and only leader and I soon parted ways. Plain old monofilament line salvaged from my spin-cast reel became my leader of choice. I found that the popping bugs were absolutely deadly on the shallow ponds and creeks. Much fun followed until the trees, snags and a couple of really nice bass emptied the Prince Albert tobacco can that served as my fly box. As I said earlier, the local sporting goods emporium did not stock any fly fishing gear, including flies, bugs, etc. I was on my own. Since we had chickens on the farm, as well as an assortment of wild birds, I began collecting assorted feathers. I found that I could tie dark feathers from wild birds on the top of the shank of a 1/0 crappie hook and white chicken feathers to the bottom of the shank, it would look somewhat like a shiner minnow. They worked about as well as the store-bought bugs. I was back in business.
Eventually, we moved to northern Arkansas. I found that tools and techniques that served me so well in the shallow Texas waters were pretty well useless in the two hundred foot deep lakes that became my new home waters. Switching to casting tackle, I began to re-learn bass fishing. Little did I know that just below the dams that impounded the very same lakes, the rivers teemed with trout. Actually I knew they were there. I just ignored them. “ trash fish “. People used corn and fished for them like catfish. What fun could that be? Oh Lord, what I would give to go back and do over!
GALLERY
THE SHOP
THE FISH
THE RODS