Whitewater State Park and paleozoic sea day, October 2014

Game Seven Carping

October run continues; into November.  I think a guy can get into some decent action in these months.  As noted previously the fish I'm seeing are grouped up either moving slowly or milling/stationary.  No fish tailing.  A few half-looking in rocks along bank.  On this day here maybe a week ago I found some moving groups, none of which would offer any individual shots.  I spotted one solo fish from above; I marked and ran down and he tried like a MF to eat the fly but he couldn't find it for a while and when he did I set the hook when I saw a mouth pulse and there was no resistance; no connection.  This is common and part of the overall calculation and consideration.  It was in this 0/1 mode that I found a solo fish who looked ready to go; found him from a high vantage point; one that does not offer a good fishing opportunity.  But I was overcome by the brash posturing of this fish and I could not let her be down there, looking in the rocks and feeling safe; hunting in spaces pivoting and looking in, picking up and setting down.  I stood about 30 feet above her and stripped off line, steeple casting.  Watching for people that I might hook on backcast.  Then high eleveation dap was in play; sure, the fly fell into the water about four feet from the carp.  Still unawares.  It had been a while since I had such a fantastic and dramatic view of a large fish doing a cat pounce.  This was a very deliberate spotting of a prey item followed by a fish pushing with a hard tail forward and then down.  To settle on a fly.  This all lead to an involuntary moan of the sort of ahhhhhh etc.  Mainlining at its finest you might figure.  I picked up the rod to an absolutely glorious bow; glorious and also hilarious because I had my arm threaded through various ironworkings.  I went hand over hand to get the rod above the guarding safety mechanisms and then did a poor job of gauging to which of the four compass points I ought to run.  For some reason I chose that with the greatest amount of wild rangy scrub brush and the steepest step down to the bank.  This meant an elaborate show of weaving a fly rod (now throwing backing, as indicated in the photo) and line through a bramble-ridden-death-maze meant to shatter graphite rods and beat them with sticks and stones.  All with various persons bipeding around looking on.  All with an 8 lb fish putting the screws to me.

After working through the Mirkwood Forest I got to the bank, and figured I had time to take off shoes and socks; fish wasn't going anywhere.  I'm usually willing to jump in with boots on; just fine.  But I had to walk home from the river, up hill 0.6 miles steep and I didn't want wet boots rubbing the various fringes of my feet.  This fish scaled at 8 lbs.  They all look bigger from above; fact. 

Got a couple more, stalking the banks.  Pried one away from a milling group.  Found one half-looking in a deep pocket behind a woody debris pile.  The last one showed this scale pattern.  I have heard people call this a full-scaled mirror.  But back in early 2000s I heard multiple guys call this a "muddler."  Unclear to me just what term rightfully applies.  Pretty though; pretty scale pattern.