I can't think of a better way to kick off summer than with friends, fly fishing, and a few cold ones.

Curt, Paul, and I took advantage of phenomenal weather yesterday and fished a Sussex County, Delaware pond for about 10 hours. I was breaking in a new St. Croix 4-weight fly rod that I got for Christmas, while Curt and Paul had their usual array of about 10 fishing rods -- both fly and spinning combos.

If we kept a tally, we probably would have recorded at least 100 fish caught between the three of us. We had the usual assortment of largemouths and panfish, but the one noteworthy catch was Paul's 1-pound-plus red-eared sunfish. We actually wanted to catch some of the rare (in these parts), big red-ears on the light tackle. They are great fighters and present a decent challenge on the 4-weight fly rods. We each caught at least one red-ear sunfish, but none were the trophy size of Paul's.