Some days when I go fishing it feels like I have boarded the express bus to Carp Town. I hit the water and just get down to business hooking fish. Yesterday was not one of those days. I launched the skiff at a spot that has recently has been producing lots of days of double-digit numbers of double-digit fish, but the express bus never came. Instead, I wound up boarding the struggle bus.
Rather than taking me to Carp Town, the struggle bus made stops at Crappy Casts, Crazy Tangles, Missed Eats, and Unforced Errors. Then, at the end of the line, the struggle bus turned around and made all the same stops on the way back. I’d like to blame the conditions, but they were damn near perfect, and the truth was that I found lots and lots of feeding fish. I just didn’t make it happen. All told, with almost six hours on the water, I only put one fish in the net:
But this morning I put on my waders and got back on the express bus. I was a little nervous after walking about two miles of desolate shoreline, but then the bus turned a corner, literally and figuratively. All of a sudden I found the fish. The weeds have proliferated quickly in the past to weeks, but they haven’t completely overwhelmed the flats yet and the carp were in and among the patches of new growth. Many fish were feeding in water that was less than knee deep, and often in dense groups. There was almost no struggle in getting a carp to eat my fly, but landing them in the weeds was a physical fight. After a couple of fish ran through the thick wall of weeds into the channel (I lost one, but managed to pull the second back through) I trimmed my leader way back and tied my fly on with a strong Palomar knot. Then I just put the brakes on the fish, turning them hard and yanking them back when they got too close the big weed beds. I finished the flat with about ten fish, and only lost one to a broken knot.
By the end of the line my shoulder was actually sore from all the fighting and I was a bit relieved when the express bus finally turned around. Only this time the desolate stretch I passed on the way out wasn’t so desolate anymore. I found scattered carp tailing right along the drop off. They were eager to take the fly, and with nothing but open water and no weeds in sight, I was eager to let them run. One fish put up a surprisingly tough fight, though I wasn’t so surprised when I landed it and saw the size of its tail!
I fished six hours, walked six miles, and landed at least a dozen carp, finishing the day with this monster:
It was good day in carp town.
The Fishing Dojo 