Slump is Off

Here are details from most recent carp outing:

This carp slump had been killing me… the last 6-8 outings have resulted in zero fish landed. I needed some virgin water – or water that hadn’t seen many flies. Finally one day I happened to be driving by a certain river… had 30 minutes to spare so I went for it. I crept up to the hole that is frequented by wife-beater-wearers (see previous post), and as expected, it was TEEMING with carp. I would estimate 50-100 in this little hole, but it’s hard to say just how many were beneath the surface and out of my sight. They were not klooping, but they were actively feeding on something that was just below the surface – I could see big white mouths pulsing open-close-open-close. They were hanging out right on the seam between the backwater and the main current. I ninja walked through some woods about 50 feet away from them – hidden in trees… and they saw me anyway! Somehow they figured out that I was there, and they bolted out of there like a herd of horses – the water just erupted. I stood stone still in disbelief and looked around me… dark, tree cover and such a distance between me and the river – I couldn’t believe it. I leaned up against a tree and stared – the nervous water was now calm and not a fish was in sight… I just about started crying. Fortunately I pitied myself long enough to allow for the carp to return…. In about five minutes they were back – same numbers and same position. This time I looped way out of the way and came up behind them. I put a girdle bug on and started working my 4 wt Avid. Right away I hooked one, but I think it was foul, because after fighting for a while it popped off. I then broke off that fly on a fish. After that though I started working them over: I put the fly on the edge of the pod and let it sink… I kept in contact with the fly and if I felt anything at all I set the hook. This got me three fish – all right in the mouth… in fact, the fly was completely inside the mouth of every fish – I think because I couldn’t see the take and I was later on the strike than I would have been had I been sight fishing. For one of the takes I actually saw the end of the fly line twitch too – very cool. Two of the carp were only ~2-3 lbs, but one was around 5-6 lbs, and that one staged a beautiful run across the river… “run, run!” I was yelling because it’d been so long since I’d hooked a nice fish. All that in 25-30 minutes… can’t ask for much more. It was really hard to leave a mass of wriggling carp… as I’m sure you can imagine. I’ll be back though – I really like seeing so many fish – makes the outing very exciting. It felt like a hybrid of sight and blind fishing – I could see the group of fish but I wasn’t aiming at a particular one, and I couldn’t see the takes.