For many people, the art of fly fishing is the convention of nature and tranquility. It’s what gets most people into fly fishing. We long for rocks, trees, water and solitude. We often equate the activity of waving a long stick in the air with standing still or walking along a wild and isolated stream.
However, due to the annoying circumstances of life (like a job), many of us live in urban areas surrounded by concrete and steel, far from picturesque stone streams. I live in Houston, Texas, the fourth largest city in the United States. It is very urban. From my front door, a stereotypical “wild” trout stream is four hundred miles away, at least.
When I first moved to Houston, I resigned myself to the idea that fly fishing forays would only happen once or twice a year, and only after I had saved enough vacation time and money to travel . I convinced myself that the waterways in the greater Houston area were not worth fly fishing. This was despite the fact that Houston is surrounded by hundreds of miles of water. Rivers, bayous, lakes, swamps, creeks and cement-lined ditches exist in the Bayou City metropolitan area, and that’s just the fresh water. But the idea of fly fishing in any urban setting was anathema to me. I couldn’t look past the stark geometric cityscape and see any desirable waterways worth introducing a fly into. Fortunately, I soon snapped out of my pity party and realized that my preconceived notion of urban waterways was dead wrong.
One sunny afternoon, I was cycling through a local city park. There was a narrow ditch, about three meters deep, that ran parallel to the bike path. As I walked, I noticed several cormorants in the ditch. As I passed, I watched the birds dive underwater, each time emerging with a chunky sunfish between their hooked beaks.
I hit the brakes on the handle of my bike and skidded to a stop. I walked to the edge of the bank and watched in amazement as the cormorants dived repeatedly, pulling out sunfish, some of which were quite large.
The cormorants were none too pleased with my snooping. His guttural croaks indicated his irritation. Finally they took flight, leaving the ditch alone. After I left, I examined the water and noticed a partially submerged culvert sticking out of the ditch. If any sunfish had been lucky enough to escape the deadly jaws of avian predators, they probably sought refuge here.
The next day, I cycled back to the same ditch, but this time I had my 3-weight rod with me. This was my brook trout rod, and until then it had been casually discarded in the corner of my closet, gathering a layer of dust.
I found the partially submerged sewer and eyed it longingly as I mounted. My fly selection consisted of trout flies, but I thought panfish weren’t too picky. I tied a size 12 dry fly and made my first cast. My eyes widened as I watched a green sunfish leave its shelter at the mouth of the sewer and swim towards the fly. The green pecked the fly a couple of times, and without further delay, ate the whole thing.
The fish turned sharply and swam into the sewer, pulling hard. In spite of myself, I laughed out loud. The 3-weight pulsed hard with each run. Finally the greenie gave up and was carried away.
Several more sunfish were caught from the sparse moat before I called it a day. I was still smiling as I got back on my bike. As I was coming home, I realized; If there were healthy populations of fish in a small urban ditch like this, how many other urban waterways also harbored fish?
Catching those ditch-dwelling sunfish was the catalyst that changed my perception of urban waterways. As I became more aware of the aquatic ecosystems in and around Houston, I began to notice larger fish such as crappie and carp breaking or rolling on the surface of the water. I even noticed small bass fins in the shallow weed beds along the banks of city ditches. I began to realize that fish lived in some of the most unassuming places.
Although urban fly fishing was new to me, it was far from it. For many decades, Houston has been the epicenter of a robust urban fishing scene. One of the local pioneers of urban fly fishing is Mark Marmon. Marmon, the owner of Metro Anglers, a fly fishing guide service, has been casting flies in the Houston Bayous since the late 1970s.
Originally, Marmon was strictly a saltwater fly fisherman. He spent his weekends driving to the Texas coast, fishing for redfish and sea trout. However, between his weekend excursions, Marmon still felt like fishing. To remedy this, he began taking his fly rod to a local cement-lined bayou near his home called Brays Bayou. He began playing with several species of fish that lived in the bayou, including populations of common carp and grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellaon). It didn’t take long before I figured out how to catch these fish on the fly. Marmon is undoubtedly one of the first people in the country to consistently catch grass carp on a fly rod.
When Marmon talks about his early days as an urban fly fishing guide, he can’t help but smile. “My first customers were mostly European,” he says. “Carp fishing in Europe was popular, but it was done with conventional gear. I didn’t know of anyone who offered fly fishing trips for carp. When my clients from Europe traveled to Houston on business, they hired me and I walked with they for the bayous”.
Today, Brays Bayou is still considered one of Houston’s most iconic urban fisheries. “People don’t realize there are fish in there,” says Danny Scarborough, another Texas fly fishing guide and owner of Houston Fly Fishing Guide Services, “and they can weigh up to 20 pounds!” Danny grew up in the Houston area and is one of the few freshwater specific fly guides working in the Houston region. To this day, Marmon and Danny guide customers through the “concrete floors” of Houston.
For most local urban fly rods, carp is considered the most popular sport fish. This is due to their large size and the fact that they can be seen in many urban waterways. Also, grass carp will hit dry flies, making them a particularly fun fish to target with a fly rod. In 2014, Danny Scarborough landed a grass carp that weighed 16.5 pounds and was over 32 inches long. This disc from Brays Bayou was caught with a dry fly.
But it’s not just carp that can be chased in Houston’s urban waterways. All kinds of species can be found. Anglers can catch native fish like channel catfish, sunfish, gar, and bass, but they can also find exotic species like tilapia, koi, and the occasional Rio Grande cichlid. So far, Marmon has caught just 18 different species from Brays Bayou.
My perception of urban fly fishing has definitely changed, and for the better. If I had never taken my 3-weight to that ditch full of sunfish, I would never have discovered the great fishery that lies in the urban jungle.
I fully recognize that urban fly fishing may not be for everyone. That said, I encourage any adventurous angler to give it a try. Of course, the experience is very different from standing on the edge of a stone stream, and no, the incessant buzzing in your ears won’t be the sound of summer cicadas, it will be the hum of the interstate. But nevertheless, once you land a fish from a modest urban ditch, I think you’ll develop a new respect for hidden metropolitan ecosystems. I know I did. It might just take one cast, and you might also be pleasantly surprised by what you find at the end of your line.