Consider the largemouth bass: It is a fish with swinish shoulders, course scales, and the chronic look of torpor. Furthermore, micropterus salmoides is often associated with the jamborees of a high-speed, lip-ripping, glitter-boat flavor.

But they, along with their other warmwater cousins, are more than that. These fish are strong, cagey, and found in a much wider variety of ecosystems than the fragile trout. They will analyze a perfectly drifted nymph and turn their nose at a delicately floated dry fly.

These fish are more than substitutes or fall-backs.