The Nature of Carp Fishing

Sunday AM, pulled another early morning deal, only this time my friend and neighbor came along. I had considered (1) exploring another new stream reach - like I did last weekend, (2) going back to that smallie stream and fishing it a little differently - maybe with more minnow patterns, (3) trying to get one last carp. When neighbor confirmed he could get out, I went for option 3, because he's been wanting to tackle a carp for a while now. I'd also seen some great fish feeding right downtown... the sight of tails sticking up out of silt plumes - that can tip the scale to carping it seems.

We got up too early, per my scheduling, and we basically waited around in the dark for the day to come around. We started at that downtown location... and found that day was in fact never going to come. That is, we were largely foiled by overcast conditions. Later a south wind came and compounded further the sight-fishing difficulty. With patience though, and careful study of the water, we were able to spot a few fish. At one point I spotted a couple great tails from high on a wall... marked them by the streamside veg, and ran down to fish to them, only to find that I could see absolutely nothing at the level of the water. I had no shots at fish. Neighbor had one good chance, but didn't get a take. We checked out two more locations - one of which was a bust - we saw silt plumes but couldn't get hooked up. The second showed us a couple great fish. We were perched very high this time... and we could see a couple big, beautiful tails, just waving back and forth in catch-me-flag fashion. Just begging for it. I put a LOD right on one and watched it sink. I saw the slightest change in behavior, so I set the hook and I figured I'd have a fish on... but nothing. One more cast and the fish sensed something and swam off. Not sure what happened - could have even eaten and spit the fly before I set the hook. I do know what I should have done though: put the fly ~8 inches further forward (instead of right on head) so I could have had a better visual cue. Maybe you can tell that I've been replaying that bit in my head a few times. Would have been a great fish, in an extremely difficult spot. Would have been outstanding. Still can't believe I botched that one. Oh well.

On the nature of carp fishing though - this got me thinking... here in our area of SE MN we don't really have a carp water that we can go to and sight fish all day. We have to drive from water to water, searching, hoping, fishing, looking. Getting skunked and stone-walled now and then and occasionally getting into fish. Whereas John Montana out west has quite a Cadillac situation: he can drive somewhere and pretty much know he can sight fish all day if conditions are right. Kind of jealous of that. What it does is make every single fish that we see here somewhat of a big deal. That fish I missed was my one chance all morning. I need to find a water that will tone down that pressure a bit and just let a guy fish, knowing he's got opps coming for a while. Those waters must be out there.

Kids and sunnies saved the day. Out of the blue, JD said "I want to go fishing today." We made it work for the late afternoon, and the kids had a mini-riot at a local fishing pier. For a while though, it seemed even the sunnies were going to blank us... Their behavior has changed a little, and on this outing they wouldn't eat a still presentation. Eventually we figured out that they would aggressively attack the fly when it was skittered around in the surface film like an injured bug.