Victory is theirs.

I am apparently hooked on carp fishing (horrific fishing pun intended).  After success Friday evening, and after wasting some time to discover the rivers in Oregon are pretty high right now, I headed back out to the local ponds to chase carps.  It didn't take long either.  After about 10 min of walking around and spooking a couple carp in the shallows, I found one rooting around in the dirt within casting distance.  I made a cast and pulled my olive bugger right back in front of his face.

The problem with carp fishing is that they don't eat then run, so you can't feel the bite.  And if you can't see your bug there's no way to know when you get a bite.  Nonetheless, I was lucky enough to get a bite and somehow got a hook set on him.  Instantly, he darted out into the deeper and extremely weedy water.  The feel of him on the end of the line went from wiggly, to sluggish, to solid and unmoving.  Then my line started coming in to me slowly and I found it covered in weeds.  He had pulled my hook straight and I had lost him.  Sad day.

Oh well, at least I still had my magic fly.

And a few minutes later I found another carp feeding.  After couple casts, fish on again!  Again he shot out into deeper water, but this time I was ready for him.  As he got closer to the weeds I pulled harder and harder until.... snap!  This time I had broke him off and I lost my magic fly.

For the rest of the afternoon I managed to only spook sitting carp, and wasn't able to find any feeding.

Carp 2, Tim 0.


And then again this evening (sunday) I decided to head out again after the drizzle started.  I had/have no idea if rain is a good thing or bad thing for carp fishing, but it seemed like something worth trying.  All decked out in rain gear, I headed out to my new favorite spot to stalk my new favorite prey.  Immediately I saw a few tail sticking up out of the water surrounded by clouds of dirt.  Good sign!  Feeding carp!

No dice on the first one.  I think my line drifted over him and he felt it and took off.  That was ok, though, because I could see a few other carp in the area so I just went over to the next victim.  I snuck up slowly to him because he was close to shore.  There was a nice big bush of poison oak that I hid behind (pictures of my rash will surely follow later this week). 

I made a few casts and finally got a good one just beyond him, and slowly stripped the bugger back toward shore and through the cloud of mud he was kicking up.  All of a sudden, a tug.  Fish on!  He turned to run, I tugged back, and fish off!!  Apparently my blood knot was not tied as well as I thought and the bottom length of tippet any my fly were now hanging from that carps mouth.  On to the next feeding behemoth.

The next guy was just around the corner and there was a nice tuft of reeds or grass for me to hide behind.  I put my first cast just beyond him and started pulling the bug back through the cloud of dust he had created.  I kept slowly stripping in, and he slowly turned to follow.  In retrospect it's sort of amusing....like a trout following a drifting dry in super slow mo.  Anyway, he followed the fly straight in toward me, slowly coming up higher and higher as the bug came up.  Then suddenly he turned.  I figured he either lost interest and I should recast immediately, or he took it.  So I gave a quick hookset, and fish on!!  Fish off!  Apparently it wasn't a good hookset, and off he shot into the weeds and left me to dig my fly out of the brush behind me.

The rest of the evening involved finding feeding carp, but not managing any more bites.  Sight fishing sure is a ton of fun, though.  I think I'll be doing this again this week.  Maybe tomorrow!


On a totally unrelated note, while writing this I began wondering why I refer to carp as "him."  I think it's because carp are pretty ugly fish, and thus they must be male.