World Class

I called McSteel two days ago.   During the conversation he told me a story that was worth sharing.

He recently outfitted his boat with a casting platform and a set of oars and locks to turn it into a stealth fishing craft.  He spent much of that week with a friend of his from Oregon who flew back to the Midwest with the sole purpose of fishing our world-class smallmouth bass fishery.

Again for emphasis: "World-Class".

It seems that when something world-class is in your backyard you tend not to think of it in such heady terms.

But, it's true.

If you wanted to go anywhere in the world to fish a trophy smallmouth bass fishery, chances are you'd end up in one of three local area codes.

I've been to Belize for world class permit, the Bahamas for world class bonefish, out West for world class trout and to the Pacific Northwest for what I would consider world class steelhead.  Yet I never looked at the local fishery as anything other than local...until McSteel brought it up.  I don't think I'm alone in overlooking the importance of what we have.  I'm pretty certain that McSteel, although he values his water and the fish in it, may have described his local fishery in terms less grandiose then "World-Class".   But, when someone (in this case McSteel's buddy from Oregon) takes a week's vacation, books a flight and shows up with a fly rod to fish your "World-Class" fishery...it's tough to argue the point.  Especially when they leave completely convinced that they have accomplished their mission.

Fast forward a few days.  McSteel asks his 10 year old son if he wants to go fly fishing for smallmouth bass.  His son (we'll call him "H") says yes. 
H is a great kid.  He's friends with my kids and an active and healthy lad.  He is not at an age where fly fishing is more important than riding a bike, or playing video games, but he likes it enough to go with his Dad on occasion.  McSteel says they went out and of the four fish that H hooked, he landed two.

One was 19"+ and the other was 20"+. 

Take a look at the fish in the picture below and I challenge you to contest the term "World-Class".

Now take a look at the smile on H's face...

...also "World-Class".

I'm not a huge fan of posting pics of kids on the internet, so I took the liberty of cropping the photo that McSteel sent me.  I was going to crop it down and just show the fish but realized that if I did I would miss the whole point of the photo.  Check out that smile...