Micro Fly Fishing
There are fish in the lake. You can get those fish by many means: you could (1) drain the lake and collect the fish, (2) dynamite the lake and rake in the floaters... or on the other end of the fish capturing spectrum, you could (3) grab the fish with your bare hands. Somewhere in the middle are bait fishing, spin fishing, fly fishing, etc. On Sunday I tried out something that is closer to the bare hand grabbing - the micro fly rod. It is 30" long and the reel is the size of a US quarter. I only fished for about an hour, but caught ~15 sunnies and two golden shiners. These small fish did a pretty good number on the micro rig - a few took me down into the weeds and just sat there... pretty funny. I started fishing an asian lady beetle on the surface - it was great anticipating those takes... I then moved to a small streamer and got some great strip-sets in. It's a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to doing it again. Can't wait for a largemouth bass hookup! It's pretty easy to cast out in the open on a lake... I do want to get this rig on a trout stream, although it will be difficult due to the limited casting reach. There is only ~15 feet of fly line, then you're casting backing. The only other note is that it seems almost impossible to put a fish on the reel - I had to strip them all in... I'll work on that. I imagine a bigger fish would put itself on the reel for me! Part of the reason for this is the capacity of the spool - you can barely fit the backing and the line on it, so to reel it up without tension on it would be tough.