There’s a pond near my house I like to fish when I can. It’s full of small trout and big bass. A storm front was moving in one evening and I thought this would be a great time to see if the bass were hitting whatever the wind was blowing into the pond. I grabbed my fly rod and a few big poppers and headed up and down the bumpy road to the pond. When I arrived, I was there alone, which is rare for that time of year. As I walked to my usual spot I noticed the wind had really picked up but it was blowing at my back so I figured it could only help my casting. I stripped about 50 feet of line onto the ground and started working it back and forth with the rod. I punched all 50 feet back into the wind, held the rod high and ripped it forward while stripping it in, a real power cast. Before I could admire my work I felt something smack me in the ear and cheek and I saw my line collapse onto the water. I didn’t need to feel my cheek to know what had happened, I had buried the popper right into the side of my face. I calmly reeled up my line and headed back to my van to check out the damage. I looked in the side mirror and I could see the hook was in well past the barb. I grabbed my forceps and started working on removing the 1/0 hook when I heard a car rumbling down the road towards me. I decided I wasn’t going to let anyone see me with a fly in my face so I clamped the forceps onto the hook and ripped it out. As I was loading my rod back into my van the guy in the car jumped out and asked “any luck?”. I answered him, with my hand pressed up against my cheek, “I only hooked one”, jumped in my van and headed home.