Graham Golas’ most memorable catch was a common carp.
Keep that in mind. He thinks a little different for a 13-year-old.
In early January Quinn Wunar messaged on X, “A good friend of mine, Graham “Red” Golas, was suffering from cabin fever something fierce. So we planned a winter fishing day before the ice up. Gave Red the choice between high percentage fishing (perch) or low percentage fishing (trout). True angler that he is, he chose trout.”
To find out how it went, you’ll have to read on. But I’ll give this hint. “The true angler,” Golas, fished in 20-degree weather from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Or, as Wunar put it, “Like a champ.”
Golas’ path into fishing intrigued me enough that I reached out. His is not the traditional path in some ways. He’s didn’t start fishing before he could walk.
“Started really young, around 6, sometimes with dad [Matt],” Golas said. “I stopped when I got interested in other things. Now it has taken off [again] and is now one of the my favorite things to do.”
Golas is a seventh grader and living in Naperville. Not surprisingly, his favorite spots are “a bunch of different spots near my house. My favorite is probably the DuPage River in downtown Naperville.”
Probably no surprise that his most memorable fish came from the DuPage River.
“It was not the the biggest, but it was my second time fishing with my buddy [Clark],” he said. “I hooked up with the biggest carp I’ve ever seen and people on the other side of the river just started cheering and clapping.”
That continued right up until the release. He caught the carp on “random pieces of corn.”
Here’s one of the things I most enjoyed about talking with Golas. He covers the spectrum of fishing. Fishing corn for carp is one of the most basic ways to fish. Yet he also evolved into tying his own flies.
The impetus for that came from fishing the DuPage and paying attention. “I first got into using flies when I saw rock bass picking off aquatic insects that were falling down,” he said.
Going to Bass Pro to buy flies was expensive, so he moved into tying his own flies.
“I got a vise and a bobbin,” Golas said.
Fly tying vises hold the hook the fly is tied on. The bobbin is a device used to keep tension on the thread used to tie the fly.
“Made a super fly for what I am fishing for, mostly foam, rubber legs and bleached elk hair,” he said. “I put a split shot near the eye and I jitter it back.”
Notice there are multiple species that he fishes for. His favorite is “probably a tie between largemouth bass and carp.”
In a lot of ways, Golas strikes me as other teenagers. He likes drawing and “sometimes playing video games. I really like making things, just crafting things and I like cycling.”
Cycling makes sense. His dad owns Golas and Sons Bicycle Repair in the South Loop. There is the connect with Wunar, who helps and teaches many, young and old, on fishing the lakefront.
“Quinn stopped by to service his bike, now we are out fishing sometimes,” Golas said.
That brings us back to early January and fishing the lakefront.
“So we set a couple bottom rigs with spawn bags and ran two floats one with a spawn bag, one with a hair jig and wax worms,” Wunar messaged. “Covered a shallow choke point at Jackson [Park] and fished very slow, very patient. Red’s first run in with a salmonoid came early on. Small jack coho on the hair jig.
“Then nothing for hours. Right as we were going to pull the bottom rods, Red noticed one had some slight action. After a couple long runs and a few jumps, Red’s second salmonoid run resulted in a beautiful winter buck steelhead. I’m glad it ended with a nice fish and not just a lesson in soaking spawn sacs patiently.”
More lessons to come I suspect, though Golas sounds like he has fishing down right, “It is fun to go out on the water, sometimes with friends. It is fun to hook up and when I reel it in, it is really nice to see when they swim off.”