Out-witted by Carp Again

The great weather lately has finally forced me into a fishing trip.  Tonight, I drove out to Cheney to check on my Carp flats from early Spring.  The water was low, making the trek through the swampy delta much easier than the last time I was there.  Rounding the final bend in the Ninnescah, I took in my first Autumn view of my "secret" flat. 

Despite the pungent smell of bird crap fuming from the newly exposed island, the water looked perfect.  I could see swirls and wakes, which I hoped to be actively feeding carp, in the shallow water.  I waded out slowly,  hoping to see a tailing carp before spooking it.  After getting out about 100 yards, I decided to stop and make a few blind casts, hoping the fish would move in around me.  As I went to pull up my third retrieve for another cast, my fly rod pulled back hard.  The fish made a strong initial run, hugging the bottom and heading towards the dam.  I survived the initial run, and managed to get back some line.  This pattern continued for about 5 minutes before the hooked popped out.  Oddly, it was probably the least disappointed I've ever been about losing a big fish.  I was just glad they were hungry. 

I saw a wake to my 4 o'clock and fired a cast on top of it.  I got to 2 on my 3 second count when the water boiled and my line once again started screaming out to sea.  This time the hooked popped out after only a few seconds.  

Several more fish were missed before I finally brought one in.  I was surprised, and a bit disappointed, when I pulled this out of the murky water.

The fish went about 20 inches, but wasn't what I was after.   I wondered if all the fish I was hooking into were catfish.  The action slowed down as the sun set, but it was fun while it lasted.

Skittin' Ta Be Dat Time O'Year

With whitetail bow season less than a week away, I thought I'd post a highlight video from last year to get the adrenaline going. 
Staab and I had already filled our tags on this year's two year olds.  So I brought the camera along to catch some footage of Staab's brother-in-law, Travis, pickin' some low-hanging fruit. 

Summer Fishin'

It's a fairly slow summer for fishing, but here's a few pics thus far...


 A damselfly on the rod tip at Kanopolis Outlet Park.

Bass and Hybrid Bluegill from a Walk-in FISH pond in Elk County.

Quiet evening float-tubing on Kingman SFL.

Farm pond fishin' near Augusta.

   




Biggest bass on the fly so far










Team-work from Adam and Gus

Conejos River Valley - Southern Colorado

Carp Report for May 2, 2010

This is my first report on Carp fishing.  It will be short, as carp were not what I was after when I went.   I was hoping to get into some creek-run white bass on my first trip to El Dorado.  I glanced at a map before I left the house, and decided it looked easy enough to get to the lake.  I knew the river had to be attached somewhere.   Found the river.  It was muddier than I had hoped (seeing some feeding carp was in the back of my mind).  Downstream I went, hoping to get away from the hard-hit fishing holes.  When I came upon a likely looking riffle I sent a chartreuse and white Clouser Minnow to its imminent death..I thought.  I was right, yeah, first cast.  It was about a 12 inch white that looked exactly the same as the next 15 I caught.  As I rounded a bend my plan changed.  There were orange circles on the surface of a slow pool in front of a log-jam.  And there were cottonwood seeds disappearing into them.  I was prepared for this.  I had tied up some CDC and white foam cottonwood seed flies just for this occasion.  I tied one on, chucked it in front of the fish, and watched it sink. (Not into an orange circle, just to the bottom).  Pretty sure those were supposed to float I thought as I dug through my box for something more buoyant than foam.  Alright!  No dry flies except for some of the first Parachute Adams' I ever attempted to tie!  These things were ugly, and even a liberal amount of floatant couldn't keep the first few on the surface.   Finally I found one that sort of floated.  I eased it right in front of several carp and got plenty of looks, but no takers.   A few casts later I watched a sub-surface fish head ever so slowly rising up beneath that funny-looking cottonwood seed, just 6 more inches and he'll be to my fly.  Wait, where is my fly!  That carp sucked it under from half a foot down!  I strip-set the hook and the fight was on!  There was quite a bit of struggle going on to keep him from going under the log jam, but he wasn't the biggest fish in the Walnut, and I was able to horse him out.  First carp on a dry fly!
There were no more carp to be seen, and the sun was getting low .  I felt satisfied with my catch for the day, so I bushwacked through a half-mile of Poison Ivy  on my short-cut back to the car.  

I Went Carp Fishing, and I feel I Need to Explain Myself

Over the last 6 months I'd been reading a lot about guys goin' out Carpin' throughout the Midwest with fly rods.  It really intrigued me.  Everyone who wrote about it claimed it was the best thing since bull fries.  It was compared to sight-fishing Redfish along the Gulf Coast or flats-style bonefish hunting in some white sands, blue water tropical paradise.  The scenery comparison is definitely more than a bit of a stretch, but the style of fishing is supposedly spot-on.  Casting to "tailing" fish which require a precise, delicate cast so as not to spook them sounded like my kind of fish party.  Not to mention the fact that they can get BIG.   Did I mention they explode into an insanely powerful run the second they know they're hooked, often taking the flyline well into the backing.  Add to that the fact that when other local sportfishing slows down during the heat of the summer, carp become even more active.  I had to try this.

I decided to document my carp fishing excursions on this blog as a way to keep a sort of logbook of my season.  Hopefully I'll be able to update it fairly regularly with reports and pictures of many epic battles with Kansas' Golden Bones. 

Justin Bayes, Professional Turkey Tracker Extraordinaire

Here's some video from my first turkey hunt of 2010. I picked a bad night to be cameraman, because it was all shootin'!