And so it Begins

What a difference a month makes! We took a trip over spring break and came home to some warm sunny days. It’s not summer yet, but it’s a far cry from frigid winds and cold empty flats.

As I predicted, the carp have shown up in bunches. Today I visited the same flat I pictured in my last post. The carp were there! I saw a lot of this:

These are sunning fish. The fact that they are suspended at the surface over water deep enough that I cannot see the bottom tells me they aren’t interested in eating.

I also saw a lot of this:

These were slowly cruising fish. They weren’t pausing or tailing, and there was no sign of mud to indicate they had been feeding. If they were closer to the bank, over the rocks and gravel, they might be willing to take a fly, but swimming steadily just outside the drop-off tells me they aren’t in an eating mood, either.

I walked about a mile of shoreline and made zero casts. I saw hundreds of carp, but not a single one was feeding!

This was not the case yesterday, however. I took the boat out in the mid-morning. I briefly saw one fish in the first spot I looked, but the water was still cool, around 46^o F, and so I moved on to check some other areas. By the time I made my way back to the first spot again, it was early afternoon. The water had warmed to about 49^o F and the carp had arrived! They weren’t feeding heavily, but there were some tailers, and a lot of fish suspended or swimming slowly in shallow water – fish that I knew could be talked into eating a fly. The first fish I cast to moved towards my fly, but it was a lazy eat and I was a split second too early on the hook set. The second fish, however, turned on the fly quickly and I got a solid hookup. I had been trying not to be too optimistic about actually catching fish, and so I wasn’t really prepared. I fought to keep the fish out of the weeds with one hand, while with my other I struggled to assemble my brand new landing net and then set up my phone and tripod for a picture. This was my first proper river fish of the year, as well as the first fish caught from my new boat – she weighed in just shy of 18 pounds.