I always love going home to the farm. There is something about going back to where my passion for the outdoors began that makes each trip so special. Taking my son fishing with my father and grandfather, helping him catch fish and explore the same places I explored in my youth. On our most recent trip back, my wife Julia and I stopped by a long forgotten farm pond to test the waters.
We were quick to be rewarded with some chunky little panfish, Julia throwing a green and black trout magnet, one of our favored prospecting lures, and myself swinging a small soft hackle on my tenkara rod. This pond was low, like many here in Missouri right now, and we had a little better access for it. What used to be a pretty steep bank due to years of cattle use more than two decades ago has softened to a more casual slope. Getting right to the water’s edge was critical for me, with my limited cast range.
We continued to fish as the sunk sank in the sky, pulling in bluegill, redear sunfish, hybrids, white crappie, and, the triumph of the evening, a couple sassy bullheads that gave us hope for returning to this pond in the future. Having lost a couple flies to bad knots, I was tying them on more carefully, but as we ran out of daylight, I knew we were nearing the end of our excursion.
Just as I was pondering packing up, Julia hollered at me from across the pond. She had caught an unassuming green sunfish, that, given what we found, was particularly voracious. Hammering down on another of her trout magnets, this was one of the very fish I had lost a fly to earlier! There, in the corner of the jaw, was my fly, which went back into my box for the next trip. As we cruised back up the gravel road to my parent’s house, where our son was playing around the campfire with his cousin, it was tough to imagine a more relaxing place than the farm.
