Sparkplug, my dapple grey mare, pulled down on the reins and drank deeply from the cold water of Broad Creek. The other horses of the string followed suit and it was hard to get them moving again. The day was very warm and bright and the animals had traveled 14 miles across Yellowstone Park’s Mirror Plateau under full loads. I guess those horses really deserved a breather.

After crossing the Creek and following it for a hundred yards or so, our outfitter, Gene Wade of Cooke City, Montana, announced that we would set up camp next to the creek. Then he also suggested that we could start fishing right beside the camp. But after all the commotion of splashing and drinking by the horses, I figured that every trout for a mile upstream and down would have been spooked.

But Gene seemed able to read my mind. “Don’t worry about these trout,” he said. “They haven’t learned about horses and fishermen yet. I doubt if a handful of anglers have visited this whole stream this year.”

After pitching camp, Gene proved his point by riding across a pool and then turning back around to cast a dry fly into it. As soon as the fly touched the water, a 1 1/2 pound cutthroat trout rose to the surface and sucked in the fly. The battle that ensued, with Gene trying to control his mount and land the fish simultaneously, was one of the funniest antics that I have ever seen.

But that is only one of the beautiful things about pack trips. The fish in the back country just haven’t learned about fishermen yet. If Gene Wade can ride across a pool and then catch a fish he almost trampled – well, an average fisherman using reasonable caution can catch all the fish he wants. Of course not all back country trout are as naive as the Broad Creek cutthroats. But they’re a lot less educated than the fish near the average fisherman’s home.

The best way to reach these unsophisticated trout is by pack trip or trail ride. Pack trips are horseback expeditions into wilderness areas. Since the areas are unaccessible by road, all provisions must be packed in on horseback. The trips generally involve riding into a chosen area and making a base camp. Each day then, the fisherman rides out and fishes the surrounding lakes and streams. The advantage of pack trips is that by spending half a day or a day, the angler is able to fish waters which are out of reach for all other fishermen except possibly back-packers.

A pack trip into wilderness country can be one of the most rewarding trips an outdoorsman ever takes. But the excellent fishing is only part of the fun. The fishing itself is done amid some of America’s most spectacular scenery. The lakes and streams are generally situated in verdant meadows or on the edges of cathedral-like woods. Snow capped mountains offset the entire scene. After living eleven months of the year in the city, camp life in the mountains can be a perfect retreat and escape.

The pack trip is ideally suited for either family groups of fishing partners. During the summer the weather is usually mild enough for the women in the family to appreciate.  The hardships are not so great that an active family cannot generally adapt to camp life. Furthermore, a wilderness pack trip provides the family with a great opportunity to be together. Pack trips can also provide fishing partners with an experience that they’ll be talking about for a long time afterwards.

In order to have a successful pack trip, the fisherman must take certain personal items along with him. Every fisherman and every pack trip requires slightly different clothing.

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Another basic bug is the wounded minnow imitation which has a rounded or bullet-shaped  face and which does not make a commotion or popping noise when retrieved. Instead it is quiet. Usually the tails are of deer hair or hackle. This type was far more popular in the earlier years of bass bugging than it is now.

A third type is that one fashioned wholly from deer hair, flared out by the tyer to make a very solid-feeling body. Some of these are made with fan wings and given an action similar to the dying flutter of a large insect on the water. Others are equipped with Z-shaped trailing legs to imitate a small frog. All were (and are) very, very effective. The main drawback is they ride high on the surface in the beginning, but gradually lose buoyancy and finally sink altogether. They are the hardest of all to cast. Not too many are available on tackle shelves anymore because they are expensive and time- consuming to make, as compared to the hard-bodied poppers.

All bugs should be fished very slowly. I have had bass rush crazily after bugs as they were hurriedly skittered or even being lifted from the water. But mostly the retrieve which kills is practically none at all. Cast out the bug to a likely spot and then let it work for you right there as long as possible – just by flipping the rod tip gently at intervals.

It is hard to resist making a popper pop – loudly as most can do. It’s an exciting sound. But I have had far better luck when moving the bug just enough to broadcast circles all around it. Some of the surface strikes which this provokes shouldn’t happen to anglers with weak hearts. I have been bass bugging for a quarter century now and still am not 100% prepared for the strike when it comes.

Experienced bass fishermen will already know the following, but probably this basic information should be included for any beginners interested in bass bugging. Stick to short casts at first – and only gradually extend the casts as you gain accuracy. In many waters containing vast shallow areas, wading is a good way to go bugging. It is a great technique for thoroughly covering water and the freedom from paddling or rowing enables the fishermen to concentrate on his fly casting alone.

Where wading isn’t practical, a light maneuverable boat usually is. Most bugging will be confined to shallow, inshore or protected waters and the need for a larger boat is small. A good accessory for bass flyrodding is a small electric motor for quietly maneuvering into tight places.

Good places for beginners to get a start in bass bugging are the numerous farm and ranch ponds which dot the American landscape. Most of these contain bass, in numbers if not in great size, and they are easy to fish. These small impoundments offer any angler good laboratories in which to test tackle and develop good techniques.

As my forgetful friend Lew Baker has always admitted, after that pioneer trip so long ago: “A fisherman hasn’t really enjoyed bass fishing until he’s done it with the light rod.”

Lew ought to know; he learned the hard way.

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The same bass is lurking again and again and this time a tiny bug falls overhead. But it falls so lightly that the bass is alerted rather than frightened – and so he gives it a closer look, maybe just as the angler twitches it slightly. On impulse or from hunger, the bass might grab it. If not immediately he could be tempted on the second or third casts.

Of course that is only theory – maybe even far-fetched theory – but bugs seem to work far better than bigger baits when the fishing pressure is high.

The best water for bugging, at least here in the Midwest, is either very weedy of full of obstacles. You look at it and your first impulse is to tie a weedless spoon onto a casting outfit and to start throwing it into the lettuce. Certainly that works – very, very well sometimes. But if it doesn’t, try going back over the same area with bugs.

I realize there are problems with snagging when you cast a bug in weedy areas. But practice develops pinpoint accuracy and eventually any fisherman is surprised at how well he soon learns to drop his bug into the tinest bits of open water. It isn’t even necessary to have open water for practice; you can spend spare moments developing casting accuracy right in your own backyard.

That brings us around again to the matter of using heavy level leaders. For one thing you have better control of a heavy bug casting. But more important than that, you can better horse a good bass right out of weedy spots, after it strikes. With the lighter leaders so necessary for trout, you would only lose most of the bass you hook.

Last summer I went fishing with my son Bob at one of the Muskingum chain lakes in eastern Ohio. We carried along a tent and pitched it as close to the lakeshore as the local camping rules permitted. Then we launched my square-ended cartop canoe and set out to catch our dinner.

But for dinner we had to settle for hamburger; nor could we catch anything for breakfast. If there was any consolation at all, it was that no other campers in the compound were doing any better. I thought about striking the tent and looking elsewhere – except that I have a stubborn streak a mile wide. So I went swimming and then sat in the sunshine to mull it over. Bob joined me.

“I have never seen this place so weedy,” the lad said, “So early in the year.”

“And I’ve never found the water quite so warm,” I added.

“Then let’s just forget about fishing,” Bob continued, “Until well after dark for a change.”

“You are reading my mind,” I said.

“Maybe I’m just a chip off the old blockhead.” Then Bob went swimming, too.

That evening we waited until all the campers were back in camp, boats pulled out on shore and steaks cooking on charcoal grills all around us. Somebody nearby started strumming a guitar. That’s when we quietly launched our own boat, cranked up the small outboard and motored to the opposite side of the lake. There Bob began casting a weedless spoon. I had rigged a flyrod and began to toss a small popping bug. Bob didn’t say anything, but I could practically “feel” him wondering how I would keep from snagging constantly.

In the beginning, before my eyes were fully accustomed to the darkness I did snag frequently. Sometimes I would retrieve long stringers of weeds and sometimes we would have to pry the bugs loose from lily stems by hand. To make it seem worse, Bob quickly hooked and boated a one-pounder with his spoon and casting outfit.

But suddenly things changed. By making shorter casts and with night vision improving, I had a couple of strikes which were missed. But the third bass hung himself and I horsed him right onto the stringer.

Ten minutes later there was another upheaval under my bug – only this bass wouldn’ t be horsed I leaned into my outfit for all it would stand, but except to lurch upward and out of the water in a wild leap, the bass was too strong to be budged. While I just held on, Bob paddled back into the weeds and we were able to “dig” out my fish. The flashlight proved useless because it was knocked overboard early in the melee. But somehow we boated the bass which, on scales later on, didn’t quite make four pounds.

The score up until about midnight was five bass to one if favor of the bug over the spoon. It is true that one inning does not constitute to a ball game, but that was a dramatic example of the bug’s effectiveness on a busy, weedy body of water.

One of the wildest nights of freshwater fishing I’ve ever known occurred on an alcohol-clear lake in central Ontario. This lake contained a fringe of vegetation around the shoreline, but mostly it was very thin as compared to Ohio or southern shorelines. Here again fishing had slowed down to almost nothing, except for a few smallmouths taken in deep water on nightcrawlers. That I went fishing at all must be blamed mostly on the unlucky trend of the poker game going on back in camp.

Fishing alone along the shore, I first tried tossing surface plugs with a spinning outfit. With these I had two strikes, landed one smallmouth and might have had much more action except that two sets of treble hooks were too much to get through the vegetation. Since my flyrod was already in the boat, I picked it up and knotted a popper to the leader.

That was like flipping a switch. Either the bass just started to strike at that moment – or the bug was the medicine they wanted. Take your choice. Before I gave it up, I had landed 11 bass, but kept only the five biggest. These weighed a total of 21 pounds and as you might suspect, broke up the poker game.

There are three basic kinds of bass bugs and many variations of all three. Best known and most frequently used today is the popper. These are solid-bodied (cork, wood or plastic) bugs with either flat or dished out faces which make popping or gurgling noises when twitched. The actual shape of the body varies greatly to imitate anything from frogs to grasshoppers, but mostly nothing natural at all. The tails and/or wings can be anything from rubber bands or bucktail to feathers and fur. My own favorite bugs are those with fluttering rubber skirt tails. I suppose you could call them miniskirts. Like the imports from jolly old England, they attract attention.

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