Fly-minded folks
Rick Brown, Neal Hall and Gale Brown spent Saturday morning doing what they do many weekends, rigging fishing rods, untangling a few lines and unhooking fish.
This time, though, they were the ones fishing, part of about a dozen members of the Flatland Fly Fishing Club at their annual Bluegill Fest at a private sandpit near 53rd and Ridge.
“We try to get together and fish quarterly, in addition to our meetings the first Thursday of every month,” said Gale Brown, the club’s president. “But we do a lot of other things.”
Last weekend they played a major part in The Wichita Eagle’s Kids Fishing Clinic. A few weekends before, a Kansas Wildscape Outdoor Kansas for Kids Day and a few weeks before that an event dedicated to getting more women into fly-fishing.
“All kinds of people come to us looking for help, and we usually help,” Brown said.
Winter was heading into spring when the club held a weekend event that featured a world-class fly-tier. Quarterly, Hall said, they have fly-fishing guides from Colorado or Missouri come to offer advice on how south-central Kansans can best enjoy the fly-fishing in those trout-rich areas. The club meets, when needed, to do clean up and structural improvements on the portion of Slough Creek that is seasonally stocked with trout within Sedgwick County Park.
But Saturday’s “just fishing” day had little physical exertion. Some members launched float tubes while others waded. All caught fish, though no bass longer than about 12 inches.
“The time to fish this place is about five in the morning,” said Rick Brown, commenting about the challenges of casting to spooky fish in the unusually clear water. He’s caught bigger bass there in the past. A few days ago a six-pound channel cat took one of his crawdad flies.
By about 11 a.m. most of the members were gathered along the shoreline to talk fly fishing and the club. Both Browns said they joined so they could meet others who shared their passion for the sport that makes them a minority among anglers in Kansas.
Such friendships lead to enthusiasm and that leads to the desire to bring more into their beloved way of angling.
At 18, Adam Urban was the youngest member at the Bluegill Fest. He’s also proof the time club members have invested in the past are worth the while.
“One day while I was spin fishing at Slough Creek, four or five years ago, and not doing too well, Rick started working with me,” Urban said. “I started going to meetings. It’s really gotten me more involved (with fly-fishing) and I’ve gotten to meet people who fly-fish that I wouldn’t have gotten to meet otherwise.”
Rick Brown talks of Urban’s skills with pride, how he won a fly-fishing contest in Montana last year and that the recent Bishop Carroll graduate is headed to college in Leadville, Colo., at the end of the summer. Urban is taking an outdoors-based curriculum, and hopes to get into the business of guiding fly-fishermen.
He’s planning on doing the same when he’s not working, too.
“I’d sure say (the club) has motivated me to help others whenever I get a chance,” Urban said. “They’ve certainly showed me the right ways to do it.”
For more information, go to flatlandflyfishers.org.
This story was originally published June 27, 2015 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Fly-minded folks."