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Thanks to the tired movies and novels a bygone era, fly fishing has adopted an unshakable image as the outdoor pastime reserved for the rolling hills of Montana. It’s here that we are presented with a cowboy, making a long, delicate cast beneath the clear blue skies of the range. He wades through a tranquil mountain stream, his fishing vest loaded down with trinkets and his boonie hat decorated with colorful fly patterns.

He catches a brown trout the size of a hot dog. That, or it’s the size of a dachshund. It’s beautiful and inspires a peace unlike any you’ve ever known.

To me, such a scene is tantamount to the experience of a five-star restaurant. Big price tags, small portions, and a clientele that scoffs at any bourbon that isn’t single barrel.

Sound familiar? I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve caught trout in Wyoming and Colorado, but I’ve never eaten at a five-star restaurant. I wasn’t great at catching trout, either. I guess some things just aren’t in the cards. 

If this is the image of fly fishing we’re left with, why would the average person believe that fly fishing is anything but expensive, inaccessible, and ineffective?

The truth is, it doesn’t have to be any of those things.

In Central Illinois, smallmouth bass—bronzebacks, smalljaws, the Rocky Balboa of the River—are the ticket. You won’t find ‘em in a clear mountain stream. They’re here, healthily hiding in winding flatland rivers and streams alongside rock bass, creek chubs, largemouth, and other usual suspects.

Personally, I’ve caught more fish using fly fishing tactics than I’ve ever caught with traditional methods. That’s the product of dedicating time, patience, and a little money to the craft of fly fishing.

Seeing the subtle slurp and splash on a topwater terrestrial or bass popper is a thrill rarely replicated, and feeling that subsurface strike on a large streamer, catching a glimpse of a shimmering, copper-colored smallmouth wrestling in the water—it’s nothing short of addictive.

And, more often than not, it’s the result of your understanding of the water, the ecosystem, your equipment, and the fish’s behavior.

Anyone can catch a fish, but it takes an experienced angler to know why they’re catching a fish.

I believe that you must be a romantic to be a fly fisherman. 

Fly fishermen must love and respect the nature that surrounds them. They must love and respect the fish that they catch. They must love and respect the experience and creativity that catching a fish requires.

But romantics tend to romanticize things. Thus, it comes as no surprise that fly fishing is almost always depicted as a solitary activity in the remote landscape of the mountainous North American West.

The truth is, most of the United States doesn’t resemble the streams of the Rocky Mountains. And most fly fishing doesn’t either.

I caught my first smallmouth bass on a black hot-head Woolly Bugger. I splashed through the water without a care and slapped a short cast across the tea-stained Salt Fork. My fly landed just before a fallen tree, about half submerged on the far bank.

After two quick strips, I felt a tug, and worried I had gotten snagged on a log. I lifted the rod tip, took a longer strip, and watched as the fly line went taut and began to vibrate. I hooked my first fish without knowing it.

A smallmouth with bright red eyes and a light complexion was suddenly airborne, an acrobatic move that smallies are famous for. They’re the perfect fish to target, at times elusive and hesitant to take a well-presented fly, but bold enough to chomp down on a streamer more than half their size.

Every catch since then has spawned the same excitement in me, and it only grows with every new trick, tactic, and understanding about nature that I develop. Every cast is another chance to reconnect with that massive presence we all chase in our hearts.

You can’t explain it, but you can feel it when you reach it. It feels like belonging. I think of it as finding the center.

But this is not what I had imagined when I first entered the pastime.

Fly fishing helps me find my center.

The reality is that any angler—regardless of size, shape, race, age, or experience level—has the power to find their center, too.

What sets fly fishing apart is that it can be everything all at once, and nothing all at once. It is simultaneously the crux of your universe and a weekend hobby. It’s infuriating and confounding, but the promise of a dopamine-drenched fight with a football-shaped smallmouth is too great to abandon.

And anyone can do it. Especially in Illinois.

Welcome to Prairie State Smallies.

See you out there,

Will

Founder, Prairie State Smallies

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