When Life Gives You Perch, Go Perch Fishing.

I have to admit, sometimes I get jealous of the assignments given to the regular writers over at Field & Stream. Bonefish, stripers, tarpon, tuna, steelhead, exotic destinations.

Who wouldn't be jealous? Especially a fishing junkie like myself. I grew up surrounded by great fishing water but for over a decade now I've lived in a place more suited to birds and bucks than bass.

But over the years I've learned to put things in perspective. Sagebrush, sandhills and an average of around twenty inches of precipitation a year make for a landscape not terribly conducive to piscatorial pursuits, so when you live on the high plains you take your fishing opportunities where and when you can find them.

And if that means fighting you way through a crowd of worm-chunking bucket jockeys and their doublewide wives for a relatively goose shit-free spot from which to cast a fly into the putrid, trash-strewn brown water of an over-fished silted-over state park pond the state euphemistically calls a “lake” in the hopes of hooking one of the pond’s stunted little perch then you just have to hold your nose, gird your loins and sally forth once more into the algae-choked breach.

Because in the end, fishing is fishing regardless of however downscale or lowbrow the surroundings and species may be. I’ve caught fish in golf course water hazards, below the outlet pipe at water treatment plants, in flooded ditches underneath interstate overpasses and pretty much anywhere else with water.

And not once, no matter where I waa fishing or what I was fishing for, have I ever thought, “Man, this sucks.”