Overlooked Public Land Bass---back to the popping bug roots

                                     

It was mid-June, and the lawyer-quiz was not far off.  Sometimes, you need a break, to clear your head, to get some clean(er) oxygen to the brain, to keep that thing inside your skull from turning to mush, jumbled with actus reus and fee simple subject to a condition subsequent and the rule against perpetuities and the elements of common law burglary or larceny and duty-breach-causation damages and ... on and on and on. 

So, trusty Old Town canoe on the truck, I drove a mere five minutes from my cookie-cutter apartments to a little bit of public land, near where I had often duck-hunted in my undergrad years.  I'd fished there before, and never had much luck, but in a different area, and by foot, not by boat.  As much as I'd like to describe it more, I'll keep the details sparse, in hopes that someone else is enjoying this same spot, now.  

Nestled amongst the urban sprawl that is most of the Triangle, and really many parts of the Southeast, places like this aren't quite like the wilds of Wyoming, or the cypress swamps along the Black River, or some other place thankfully spared from human meddling.  But they are an amazing way to escape the everydayness of the concrete and the cookie-cutter that seem to be enveloping the little natural beauty that's still around...

                                          

This weed-filled swamp-pond took the role of what the Rapidan river was for me while I was in high school---a chance to de-stress, unwind, and get ready for whatever challenge was to come.  And like the Rapidan, I found willing fish, on my first cast, too, eager to take a popping bug.  Those popping-bug Rapidan smallmouth hooked me on fly-fishing, and I'll never be the same.  

Here, no Rapidan smallie rose from the rocky, swift depths, but instead a piedmont bucketmouth took its place, devouring my fly after the first or second twitch from the weed bed, and propelling itself out of the tanin-dark water.  

More than several bass more would do just like that, and nice fish, too.  This was just what I needed---the feeling of fly line shooting through the air, a bend in the rod when a fish took the fly, the canoe gliding through the water, and human-beings thankfully absent, (except the the whine of rubber on the road).  

The moral of the story is, get outside---you never know what you'll find in in plain view.