Fly fishing for bluegill. The fish are small, but the color’s big.

Most fishermen don’t rank them too highly in the “difficulty” department; even John Gierach suggests bluegills provide more sustenance than sport, and we’ve yet to see the best-selling release of “Selective Bluegill.”

Of course, all that human expectation doesn’t necessarily translate to the bluegill, which is how I found myself standing on the edge of small, spring-fed pond with an 8′ 5wt Phillipson in hand, wondering if I was about to receive a bluegill-induced skunking.

The water was a little too cold for the bluegills to spawn, but you know, they’re still bluegill, right?

The scene of the almost-crime; a spring-fed ranch pond.

Let’s set the scene; it was Saturday evening, a barbecue jammed with good food was waiting for us, and pond owner Mad Dog and I were looking for signs — any signs — of happy, feeding bluegill.

He landed one earlier in the day on a dry fly, but I finally went with a flashy, krystal-flash bodied softhackle that used to kill ‘em on my warmwater Bay Area bluegill haunts.

The “glitter-is-good” Hollywood soft hackle.

Because of its somewhat questionable pedigree and “flashy, skin-deep” appearance, I named it the “Hollywood” soft hackle, and once again, it produced the goods.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere (as if we didn’t already know American Idol is more popular than Masterpiece Theatre), but one of fly fishing’s most important rules is this:

When there are fish on the line, ignore all object lessons.

The final score was Underground-1, Bluegill-0, though I did kneel in sizable pile of goose shit, and I imagine the Bluegill were sniggering a little over that misstep.

More bluegill adventures could occur at any time, though the weather this week looks cloudy and rainy — the kind of warmer storms that can speed-melt the remaining low-level snow and blow the Upper Sac flows.

Dave Roberts called; he’s getting over pneumonia and I’m finishing a big project, and we agreed we both needed some river action later this week.

As always, you’ll be among the first to know, provided I don’t do anything stupid like fall in the water or kneel in shit.

See you at the washing machine, Tom Chandler.

Last cast. Even when the fly fishing’s poor, the looking is good.

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