This was a month of compromise on Kit Lake, my home water, in central Florida’s largemouth bass country. True summer finally settled in, complete with afternoon rains and constant humidity. Water temperatures moved into the 80s, and air temperature climbed past 90 each day.
After a busy May, our bass relaxed après amour in deep waters. So we exchanged our goal of fishing for large bass and focused on catching panfish. Bluegill, redears and others aggressively chased subsurface flies like hare’s ear nymphs and moderately sinking Clousers presented in two to five feet of water. This is still good fishing. And anyway, isn’t everything a compromise?
Relationships demand compromise. Bosses placate stakeholders with numbers we don’t recognize. We want to escape by fishing in quiet places, but we still go when the Limpkins arrive with their amplified squawks. And sometimes, we compromise our safety or more just to go fishing. And compromise isn’t all bad. The Mustang was designed as a compromise. Democracy is compromise. Flying stand-by is a compromise that gives us a chance to take that fishing trip.
So, compromising in our fly fishing is something we do at this time of year. If you can’t change waters to find active bass in the shallows, catching big bluegill on light rods is sport enough to provide excitement and relief that anglers crave.
