Fly fishing is fun, I had forgotten

I’ve fished since I was a child, but I didn’t get hooked until I started using a fly rod.

I was probably 12 or 13 when Dad showed me how to cast tiny foam-rubber spiders for bluegill. It wasn’t long before I got the hang of it, and could put that spider where I want-ed. I’d twitch it a time of two, then raise the rod tip when the bug was engulfed by a rising fish, and feel the line go taut.

It wasn’t the way most folks fished in Indiana, but it gave me a leg up when I moved to Montana. A lot of folks out here considered it the only way to fish.

I brought my meager fly-fishing skills West when...