Many anglers wade lake and pond edges with considerable success. It is a method with several advantages and for fly fishers it can be ideal.

Water, abundant sunlight, and warmth are the essentials for growth of the plant life necessary for the propagation of crustaceans, insects, and other small creatures that fish feed on.

In shallows, the bottom is well lighted. Even where the surface is shaded with lily pads and duck weed, enough sunlight filters down to enable the organisms below to thrive. This is the lake's fish food factory.

All sport fish are, in varying degree, negatively phototrophic. That is, they tend to shun direct light. Most retire to deep water when the sun is high.

Crappies, bluegills, and bass routinely move into sun warmed shallows in late afternoon and evening to feed. This is the time insect activity peaks and the sun's rays are no longer direct.

Walleyes don't usually leave the security of deep water till dark but northerns can be active in shallow water in midday if there is weed cover.

Bass will cruise the early morning shoreline for minnows and may sit out the midday sun in the shade of a lily pad or half submerged log.

Fish in shallow water feel vulnerable and so are easily spooked. There is a saying that "big fish didn't get big hanging around boats". At any rate, they don't hang around long when a boat moves into the shallows.

They don't seem to have that same fear of someone wading, however.

More times than I can count, good fish have taken a fly at my feet after I dropped it on the water and was stripping off line for the first cast,

The largest brook trout I ever caught was taken after a forenoon of wading the shoreline of Patterson Lake in Price County. I had made that "one last cast before quitting" and had retrieved the peacock herl nymph back to where I was standing. It settled to the bottom while I cranked line back on the reel.

When I turned to go, there was a fish on. For several minutes I thought it was a large northern. Seen under water, it's markings made me think of a pike and several times it rolled on the leader much as a northern will. In fact, when it finally came to the net, it was wrapped in several turns of leader. it had an aldermanic girth and weighed three and one half pounds.

I have fished that same lake many times in the last twenty years both with a canoe and by wading. Now that I think about it, I have had the most fun and caught the largest fish while wading.

Probably the most productive action you can give a nymph fly is to start it towards the surface with an accelerating motion. This was never, brought home to me more emphatically than one morning on Patterson Lake.

I had spent most of a forenoon there, wading and fishing a nymph fly, without as much as a single hit. Finally, tired, thirsty and disgusted, I decided to call it quits. I had just made a long cast and didn't even bother to retrieve. Instead, turning, I put the fly rod over my shoulder and started walking towards shore.

I hadn't taken more than a half dozen steps when a fish took that fly with a thud that nearly broke the rod. Evidently as the line tightened, it had lifted the fly from the bottom (classic nymph action) and a fish seized it and hooked himself.

It was a beautiful twelve inch brookie and the only fish of the day.

I recall one time, during springtime high water, when it was necessary in order to have room to cast because of the trees crowding the shoreline, to wade out deep enough so that the lake water was dangerously close to pouring over my wader top.

Trout were rising to minute surface flies and they took a small Adams readily, but netting them was something else.

Rainbows take a fly and run and leap, browns fight under water, but brook trout dive for the bottom and that was what these did.

Short handled trout nets weren't designed for scooping fish off the bottom while standing erect, and size 14 dry fly hooks aren't much for hauling hefty, thrashing brook trout up through several feet of water so they can be reached with a net.

Besides, as often as not, they dove towards me and wrapped leader and line around and between my ankles.

The icy water spilling over the wader's top made me think of the fellow who said, "The main difference between chest high waders and hip boots is that waders hold more water". it took me a week to get interested in fishing for Patterson Lake trout again.

A few of us regularly wade the shoreline of one of Madison's lakes late afternoon and evenings to fish for bluegills and crappies. Both take fly rod lures very well.

We also fish the same lake quite often with boats or canoes. But the information about bottom composition gleaned while wading is helpful however we fish the area.

Another advantage is freedom from the hassle of transporting and loading and unloading a boat or canoe. Also, many times lake access is available to a wader even if there is no launching room. Just the waders, a rod, some flies and you are fishing.

There are a few accessories, of course, that can make things go smoother. For one, a floating live basket is nice. If yours doesn't have built in buoyancy, a waterski belt wrapped around the top will keep it floating.

R. E. "Bob Turner", Evansville, inventor of the "Turner Shellback" fly, uses an old trailer inner tube on his and it works good. incidentally, his new fly still works also. I watched him take a dandy bass from Gibbs Lake on it early in May this year.

A belt worn outside the waders will keep them from filling with water immediately in case you stumble or step into a hole. Here's another use for a waterski belt.

Talking about water in waders, even the most watertight ones get wet inside. The combination of cold water outside and a warm body inside makes for condensation, and if the water is real cold there can be lot of it. Check them carefully before condemning your new waders as leakers.

Hanging them upside down in a dark cool place between trips will help keep waders in good condition. Crumpled newspapers placed inside will dry them quickly.