Page 42 - Nov/Dec 2021 Outdoor Oklahoma

“ So, there I was around about what to use, and my daughter’s youth pastor, who fishes the Blue
“That was going to be the ultimate, right?” she said with a laugh. “I asked
with my fly rod River a lot, told me to use Power Bait. ... So, there I was with my fly rod and
and jigging with jigging with Power Bait, thinking I was fly fishing!”
It didn’t work. In fact, she failed time and again.
Power Bait, “I just didn’t know what I was doing,” she said.
Things turned around one weekend after she posted a question about fishing
thinking I was the Lower Mountain Fork River at Beavers Bend to a Facebook group.
“People said a guide, Donovan Clary, was going to be out there, and I was like,
fly fishing!” ‘Whoa, he is way out of my price range. I am not going to ask him anything.’ ”
But when she went to the river, she ended up bumping into Clary and the
couple he was guiding anyway. They struck up conversation, as anglers do, and
before she knew it, Clary was ready to show her how to catch a trout by Euro-
nymphing — a style of fly fishing she knew nothing about.
“I had my Martin rod at the car, and Donovan was like, ‘We can just leave
yours here.’ ”
A couple of lessons on reading the water, where trout like to hold and where to
toss the line for the right drift, and she was on-track.
“I think on my third drift I caught my
KELLY BOStIan first trout,” she said. “That lit the fire.”
She devoted herself to fly-fishing
during COVID-19 shutdowns. She
completed the 15-by-15, which meant
learning that “perch” were not perch
but were bluegill, longear, redear and
green sunfish. She also learned the
difference between a spotted and
largemouth bass, and the differences
between white bass, striped bass and
hybrid striped bass.
Competitors post selfies on the con-
test Facebook page to confirm their
catches, and one educational part of
the event is when entrants post selfies
with incorrect fish IDs.
“He’s so cute!” Norris said of a small “I was down to where all I needed
channel catfish that took her fly on the to complete the challenge was a striped bass, and (tournament organizer)
Lower Illinois River. Scott Hood became my enemy,” she said, laughing. “I kept posting pictures
with ‘striped bass’ and he’d just reply, ‘hybrid, nope, hybrid, hybrid.’ I got
so frustrated!”
Nowadays, she’s the one to out-fish most and to pass along advice, even

KELLY BOStIan

Lands and releases a rainbow trout

40 OUTDOOR OKLAHOMA