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I learned how to catch fish on a fly rod with bluegill.  I have 2 little boys (6 and 4) and both of them are trout fisherman, and on the fly at that.  Recently I realised that neither of them had caught a single bluegill on the fly rod and we really needed to change that.  I loaded a fly box full of floating foam bluegill bugs along with some small colorful woolies, stopped by the store to fill the cooler with Capri-Sun and Oreos and we were off.  Florence C. Cook's landing on the Bryant Creek is where I caught my first fish on a fly rod (and MANY more after that) so that had to be where we went.  With the drift boat in-tow we were after it, there was a rowing lesson in store for the boys too.

As usual the bluegill were quick to eat...real quick.

The bow of most drift boats fits a kid nicely...and is often a source of a fight among my boys as to who gets to sit in it first.  This trip the youngest won with a sweet left hook that big brother didn't see coming at all.

The rowing lessons went well, the anchor was down to get the most out of the training but it went well.

So while little brother was on the sticks and protecting the boat from supposed somali pirates:

big brother decided to bust out some slabs....

The thing is, they had a blast.  We did some swimming lessons (none of that pansy pool swimming lessons, they fought the current like little men) but I can honestly say that this was a fishing trip where I fished WITH my boys...catching fish right along with my eldest and handing the rod off to my youngest to strip in a fish.   Some nice bluegill were caught but the thing both of them keep talking about and rolling belly laughing about is the little fish---that unmistakable sound of a tiny bluegill that is too small to take a floating bug is a sound that I hope all three of the Fly Fishing the Ozarks readers know....

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