When I'm packing for a fishing trip to somewhere I've never fished, I tend to bring everything imaginable. I've been trying to overpack less and less each time but figuring out which flies to take and which to leave.

Then, once I'm on the water, I only have to pick from the flies I brought instead of all of the ones I own. That still leaves way too many choices.

Today, I could've left the vast majority of them home. Only one fly worked no matter what I did. So, I kept going back to it...finally got a half dozen fish on a very tough day of fishing (even folks that know the lake we were on were struggling).

The weird thing was that I normally fish the downwind side of the lake. I was taught that the wind blows the food that way and the fish follow.

Today, the only place I could catch fish was on the back side of an island (where the island itself blocked the wind creating a band of calm water) or in coves that blocked the wind.

The majority of the fish I caught were working the surface near where that calm water met the wind-whipped water in much the same way that trout will work the seam between fast and slow water in streams and rivers.

I ended up with my first bass of the year and my first bluegill of the year on a fly. All taken with a small popper (my new favorite fly).

The most fun was the 9" bluegill that hit the popper the instant it hit the water.