A Big Evening Carp In The Rain

I went to the lake this evening to get a bit of carping in before a second bout of rain came in. When I opened my bag I realized that I had put the wrong fly box in. Instead of the carp flies I had a box full of big streamers. Luckily there are some woolly buggers in that box, so I pulled out a black one and tied it on. While I waited for the wind to calm down I blind cast in hopes of smallmouth and got lucky with a nice one.

As I biked around the corner I spotted some big tails waving next to a friend's dock. I Put the bugger in front of the closest and it moved over and took. I failed to set the hook but the fish didn't spook. In fact, more were coming in. I got a few looks and then a solid take that did end with the fish all spooking and me muttering four letter words.

I wasted time riding around hoping the school would come back. They didn't, but as I passed the tree line I saw a big ugly curtain of rain coming in.

Then I looked in the water and saw a big beautiful carp feeding heavily. I put the olive woolly bugger I had tied on just passed it and preformed a perfect drag and drop. The fly was just a little bit ahead of the fish and it was still focused on the bottom when the fly settled. I waited for it to start to move forward and gave the fly a little twitch. The fish very clearly noticed and it moved forward and gave that carp eat tail twitch. I set the hook and it dumped straight into the backing. There were only a few turns of line left on the reel when I stopped it. keep in mind I am using a rod that is missing a bit off the end. Fortunately I'm very well stocked with guides and end tips so I had one that fits and works. After I got done worrying about how the rod would handle the fish did another run into the backing. The fight this fish gave was ridiculous. Fortunately when it was close to shore there was plenty of shallow water to keep it from flipping out when I tailed it.

Once I had a good look at it I could see why it fought so well. It was long and by carp standards, fairly lean. That meant it had a lot more swing in its tail, which was a huge paddle anyway. There were a few times when it boiled at the surface and I was sure it had to be one of those 20+ pound monsters, but it ended up just having more fight in it then most it's weight.

I'm looking forward to seeing how they're behaving tomorrow morning.