Everyone here seems to agree that this has been a mild winter so far. We had a few sunny days in a row during January with highs around 50 degrees. The river, however, was pretty chilly. Army Corps of Engineers data claimed the water temperatures were in the low forties, but I took the boat out and my thermometer read 39 degrees, which would put the carp in a state of near hibernation. Still, I was determined that my first fish of 2026 would be a carp, so I put on some warm socks and went looking for fish.
The water was high and turbid and cold. Even at 1 pm I had to break through sheets of ice in the shady shallows. But a little further on, where the sun was shining along the shoreline, I found some carp. They were very lethargic, but a few slowly waving tails told me that they were feeding. I basically had to dap my fly onto their noses to get a response, but I soon hooked my first fish of 2026.
The poor thing didn’t even struggle. It felt like an icicle when I lifted up for a quick photo, but I think the mild air actually warmed it up a degree because it swam away strongly when I set it back into the water. I was also pleased to to check the box of catching a carp on the fly in January.
Later that afternoon, during a bit of casting practice at my local pond, I hooked my second fish of the year, an aggressive hatchery trout, which soon became dinner!
The Fishing Dojo 