It’s 80 F in March, Part III:

[Part II was long day of social appointments offsite and having folks over to our place, drinking throughout day, etc. i.e. not relevant subject matter for this venue]

Looks like ~5 hours to handle on my own came up. Original plan was to find some bugs and get after trout. I thought and thought and toiled and wallowed in indecision as I’m wont to do. Finally came down to this: I went against trout fishing because (1) I don’t like driving 45 minutes one way, and even my home waters 25 minutes away seemed too far, (2) the bugs are not well-defined at this point and reports I was reading suggested only sporadic activity, (3) can’t keep any fish right now. So in sum I didn’t want to drive far to catch and release average-sized trout via nymphing. And one more thing: it’d been a long time – maybe 1+ years – since I’d given local carp a good solid look (I’ve dishonored them recently by giving them only little bits of time wedged in here and there). So that’s what I did: carp focus. I spent 30 minutes the night before doing some recon and planning. I had five waters in my home area queued up, with a plan to get to three of them holding two in reserve. I ended up getting to two of them, which is a good thing.

(1) Conditions were not optimal, but manageable. Windy, cloudy and water slightly turbid. Sun would break through now and then. But as we’ve learned over the years poor conditions can be managed and can actually work in your favor now and then as carp have difficult time seeing fisherman. The basic technique here is one of patience and slow walking, and intense, nearly mind-numbing focus on the water through your polarized glasses. I spooked a lot of fish because I didn’t see them in time. Could only see their dark shapes, or occasionally the outline of dorsal and fins. Could not see heads or mouths. Spooked a couple nicer fish. Then went to the other side of the river – side I don’t usually fish. Two minutes into that walk found a fish that was a dead lock. Presented the fly and guessed on the timing/take. First carp of 2012 to hand.
(2) The technique in this setting involves one key decision on spotting a carp: cast from the high bank and risk waving your rod and line all over hell, or sneak down the bank and slink up for dapping. All three fish I caught at this location were via the latter approach. The carp can see you up there and it’s tough to present from that high bank. Not impossible, but tough. And vegetation comes into play: in a couple months this bank may be unfishable. Stinging nettles and every other thick veg specie in there.
(3) Left that water looking for bigger fish. Walked into them on first investigation. I was thinking it’d be a bust so I didn’t have my scale in my pocket… I peeked into the water and saw some biyatch fish in there; ran back to the car whooping a bit and grabbed that scale with some hope. Didn’t hook any of them though. Went to another water; it was a bust, so came back to the big fish water. I said to myself there’s no way you won’t hook one of those fish if you just set aside the time and iteratively go through fly box. Soft hackles, SJW, leeches… I kept putting these flies on these damn fish but they weren’t eating. They were swimming in a circle and disinterested. But then to the DC squirrel strip fly… two minutes with that in the water and things took a turn. Complete disclosure: I was watching one fish getting ready to cast to it… but I was making a habit of jigging that fly in between casts. As I was picking it up to cast I bounced/jigged it up… and here came a f*cking dinosaur-headed carp, swinging slowly from side to side, up from the depths right under the fly… big white mouth opened and sucked in that squirrel strip! I know I yelled at the top of my voice at that point. Hooked that fish. Just a sow bitch pig of a carp. What hasn’t been said yet: I knew I had only a 1% chance of landing the fish because of the extremely goofy location/setup. No details shared here on that, but suffice to say it was a tough angle. But hook the fish and then worry about it. So I did some odd things that involved running away from the water 20-25 yards, standing on my tip-toes and risking breaking my rod for a solid 30-45 seconds of foot travel. And I almost pulled that shit off. Almost. I was nearly home free and she popped off. Too much slack on line. Tip-toes weren’t tall enough, etc. Easy high teens fish, may have touched low 20s. Hard to say. Will work on it.
(4) The biggest fish to hand was scaled at 11 lb. Quick story on that, which adds to the on-going dialogue re over-estimating fish weights. As I was fighting that fish, along came a guy that I knew. We talked a bit. Good guy. Smart guy. He said “looks like 20-25 lber, right?”
(5) Two smallest fish were kept for eating. They are on ice at home right now. I’m still figuring on the best means of cleaning and prep. Probably then smoking.
(6) Felt good to catch some weighty fish. A guy loves trout but they are not fighters and they are not heavy.
(7) Don't figure you can put carp in a cooler of water without securing the cover. They objected to captivity and in fact released themselves.
(8) Quest for 20 lb Miss River Basin carp continues. If I can add that to the 20+ fish from Columbia and Great Lakes basins, might retire or at least make a t-shirt out of it. I think I saw some yesterday, and they are there for the catching (albeit tricky catching). Trickiest thing though is finding another slot of time to go get them