Ploop

 A grey squirrel sits on the branch of a mulberry tree, stuffing its face with almost-ripe fruit. The oblong white berries are just starting to get the brushed-on red tint look that means they're ready for the taking. The squirrel haphazardly plucks them from the small clusters they grow in, losing some now and then. Each berry falls, bouncing off branches and tumbling as they go. The tree would have it that these berries land on dry ground where some other animal might find them and spread the seeds to areas not already thickly canopied. But this tree loses some of its potential offspring each season, because this tree happens to grow over water. Each mis-picked berry, dropped by a squirrel, grackle, sparrow, or starling, falls to the water below with a distinct "ploop". And there it is met by hungry fish. Cyprinus carpio, as foreign to the landscape as the starling above, gather en masse under each mulberry tree and greedily feed on the sweet fruits each berry season. They have grown so familiar to that "ploop" sound that, even when one is far way from one of the trees and the berry fall is long done, they still frequently come to inspect anything that lands in the water in such a manor. 

The well rounded and observant fly angler will learn to predict such events. Food drives fish and when such abundance of calories- one which exceeds normal standards but isn't so high as to drive down competition -the angler can have not only excellent fishing but striking opportunities to watch wildlife interact. On this day, the angler sat poised below the mulberry tree looking up into its branches rather than down into the water. The squirrel busily worked in the foliage, and eventually knocked another berry free. The angler's gaze followed its indirect path to the water. It bounced off of one twig, knocked a leaf, then fell to the water's calmly rolling surface. Two shadows rushed to the berry's sound, creating wakes in their rush to obtain sustenance. Neither one actually found the berry, which was then slowly sinking to be battered about by bluegills before resting on the bottom. One of the carp mouthed at a peice of flower peddle but found it lacking. 

The angler observed not because he didn't want to catch a fish yet, but simply because he felt no pressure to. He'd stood in this spot before, watching the same show. He knew what would happen when he pulled line from his reel, made his cast, and let his spun deer hair fly land with a "ploop". He was in no rush. That would only lessen the amount of activity he saw before him now and there was no need to disrupt it just yet. He'd watched this show, sure. But he was far from tired of it. He was content to remain a passive viewer for a few more moments. 

When the desire to interact with the carp in front of him finally overruled his enjoyment of their un-bothered feeding, he wet his fly in the water at his feet. This would give it the weight to convincingly approximate the sound of impact as well as the buoyancy of the natural berries. They don't float high and dry as a foam fly or completely dry deer hair fly would. Then, with a sharp flick, he delivered his artificial lure underneath the mulberry tree. A chestnut colored mirror carp rushed to it, needing to beat out the competitors lurking nearby. It was completely and utterly duped, slurping down the berry with no sign of apprehension. The angler raised the rod and in time made work of taming the specimen. It was a lovely creature. The fly was removed and the fish returned to its habitat a lot more weary than it had been before. Indeed the battle had made aware the other carp as well, and only two remained near the tree. Their actions were flighty and quick though, and the angler felt it prudent to call it a day. Though he'd enjoy catching another, he knew he could so elsewhere thereby allowing these fish to return to their natural rhythm. There was no sense in not only making the fishing harder for himself down the line by over-educating these already clever fish, nor did he feel making their capture harder for the next angler down the path was a kind thing to do to a fellow watcher of the interplay of berries and animals. Whistling as he went down the path, the angler thought about "ploop" sounds, clumsy squirrels, and hungry carp. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, and oddity on Display for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

The Value of Walking

 On a sweltering late summer day, I trod carefully along the banks of a heavily impacted New England river. This was a river I'd fished before, but a stretch I was unfamiliar with. I was on the hunt for carp. In rivers, I've often found that carp are not sparsely and evenly distributed. There'll be extremely long stretches with none at all, the short stretches occupied by substantial schools. I'd say I'm slowly piecing together together the factors that make a stretch of river appealing to carp, or at least appropriate for spotting them, but after a number of years of experience I've come to learn that at least on some rivers, the carp aren't necessarily in the same stretches year to year. 

Illustrative of this is a different, narrower, impacted New England river, one I fish and guide on regularly. There's a series of separated deep pools, each with fish. Year to year thought the abundance changes in each pool, and it is clear that though there are at points hundreds of yards of extremely shallow water in between the fish move pool to pool. Last year, a small orange koi started his year in what I call Pool 1. A few months later he dropped down into Pool 2. This year Pool 2 is the only place I've seen him. Additionally, Pool 1 and Pool 2 both have more fish showing than they did last year, whereas Pool 3, the longtime over-performer, seems to have about half as many fish.

Perhaps even more illustrative is a medium sized tributary stream. Last year it was full of carp. I found schools in four different sections. Some were huge. In fact, a client of mine hooked and subsequently broke off a fish that was easily 30 pounds. This season, there simply weren't carp in that stream. They'd all apparently dropped back for the winter and decided not to return. 

So that leaves some mystery in rivers like the one I was walking. Even if I found good looking water, there may not be fish. Indeed I carefully observed multiple pools- even going so far as climbing trees and watching for extended time periods from perfect vantage points -that clearly had no carp. They had the features of pools I'd found carp in on other rivers, so I can't rule them out for future seasons. the fish just aren't there now. Not to be deterred, I kept covering ground. I knew I'd find them eventually. I moved slowly and methodically, stop[ping and watching. I wasn't pausing and making casts, unless I saw a good sized smallmouth or a pod of rising fallfish, I was just looking. 

Eventually I did find what I was looking for, a substantial school of carp in a short stretch of river that really didn't look extremely special. It featured a couple deadfalls, mud bottom, slow and even current, and a steep far bank shaded by trees. It certainly looked good, but so had many other areas I'd already walked by. Perhaps it was the sum total of those aspects and perhaps a couple I didn't list that made this the carp's preferred stretch. Or maybe next year they will be somewhere else in the river. Regardless, they were there now. These fish were sizable for the area, most looking to be in the high teens in weight. All were mirrors. Their behavior didn't lend itself to feeding, however. They moved about in groups of three to six, moving much too quickly. I'd need to return at a more appropriate feeding time.

A week or so later, I got another opportunity to visit the river under better conditions. I carefully made my way to the spot, keeping my eyes out for fish that may have moved into any of the spots in the mile and a half between where I parked and where I'd found the carp on the previous trip. I didn't locate any new fish, but with near-ideal conditions, the fish at "the spot" seemed much more numerous and were clearly in a feeding mode. I tied on one of my black body squirmy hybrids and crept into position. The  first fish I presented to took. I had my work cut out for me on six pound but eventually got the fish to hand. 

I'd made one cast and caught one fish. Such events underscore the value of walking. If you sight fish, whether its to rising trout, carp, striped bass, bonefish, or whatever else it may be, there is immense benefit in simply covering ground slowly and methodically. Not casting, just observing. It allows you to see the lay of the land and grow your understanding of the location as well as the structures within it that the fish like or don't like. It also highlights the value of getting distance under your feet. This school of carp was residing at least a mile from anywhere I could park.I learned long ago that the way to fish fish was to search. I was relentless, and still am. Covering ground, covering water... there is huge value in walking. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, and Chris for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

The Mirrors of Autumn

 The fly carp season is winding down. Sure, there'll be some late fall and winter bite windows, but on the whole things are coming to a close. It was a very good year for me. I got a lot of fish, my first mirror and then dozens upon dozens more, the most carp I've ever caught in a single day, my first periodical cicada carp, my first mulberry carp, and two top ten biggest carp. I'm going to go ahead and call it my best carp year since I started fishing for these things seven years ago.

Will watching my best season wind, I spent some time walking and casting to small mirrors and commons. Though the mulberries were months gone I still managed to get a handful of fish to come up for the dry. That was one of the coolest discoveries of my fishing career; getting carp, even tailing carp in as much as three feet of water, to come up for a berry pattern. I still haven't applied this method on a waterway that doesn't have mulberry trees, but I will be doing that next season. 

One evening I was battling waning light and mosquitoes and struggling to get looks from the fish. I was also dealing with walkers throwing rocks in the canal... oh, the joys of fishing high foot traffic areas. I was running out of real estate when I found a shallow tailer on the far bank. I made a kick ass cast and the fish turned to find the fly. It didn't seem to see it, so I stripped it. This sounds absurd, I know, berries don't dart across the surface. But for some reason it works. The fish charged hard and ate. Rarely is a hook set as satisfying when a cast with a dry fly to a carp is so well executed and the fish eats just as perfectly and beautifully as you could want. So, so satisfying. And of course the fish responded fabulously with some thrashing on the surface and a good hard run. It was excellent.

 When I didn't get fish to react to dry flies, I was still able to get them on the good old Ausable Ugly. Honestly those hook sets might be just as satisfying. A carp on the fly is a carp on the fly. They don't come easy most of the time. Each one is a result of hard work and hours of observations. 

Most of my clients this season wanted to carp fish. I only ran a very small handful of trips for other species. From the get-go, I knew it was going to be the trickiest fish for me to get clients onto consistently and that proved very true. Some of the worst conditions of the year also happened to set up right on the days I was booked, which didn't help, leading me to take a couple clients out for discounted redemption trips when they didn't even get a single good shot on their first trips. I have to say thanks to those of you that booked me this carp season. If anyone is interested in learning the ropes of late fall or winter carp fishing, feel free to contact me, but such a trip needs to be planned in accordance with a weather window, so if you don't have flexibility I don't want to waste your time. Hopefully I'll see some of you next season, it' going to be a good one. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, Streamer Swinger, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Dry Fly Carp For Garth

 A little while ago my good friend, nicknamed Garth, booked me for a short carp trip that ended up blown out from the crazy July rain. I'd almost considered suggesting a reschedule, but I thought one area in Rhode Island would drop fast enough. I was mistaken and we skunked, so I had him come back out with me a week later for free. Of course I intended to make a couple casts too, but the whole goal was to make up for the previous trip by getting Garth his dry fly carp. Conditions were prime and we got on the water early. 

Fish were plentiful, very plentiful. The high water had also seemed to move them around a bit. I wasn't recognizing fish in their normal haunts, unlike prior trips. Carp have relatively small home ranges in any given body of water, so it's very typical to recognize the same fish feeding in the same general areas if you fish enough. My home lake is a great example. It's huge and has both mirror carp and koi, but I'd never seen either variants fishing the accessible beats. When, for a short time, I had easier kayak access there though, I found some of those koi. They were always in the same stretch of shoreline. I didn't see a mirror there until this year's span- carp ditch their home range for the spawn. Big storms and changing seasons and food availability alter the range and distribution of the fish, and the big rain had very much refreshed this canal. Fish were in new areas. 

Despite an abundance of shots the fishing wasn't easy- carp fishing rarely is anyway. Garth was picking up a lot of the advice and tricks I was feeding him, and I watched him improve throughout the day. Eventually he nailed it under one of the berry trees and a gorgeous mirror charged his dry fly. 

I made a few shots too. I was intentionally picking tricky long shots, seeing if I could get my accuracy down just a little better. I stuck two fish. One broke off in a deadfall, another made it to hand. The one I caught was actually a specific mirror I've been after for a while. I've seen him a bunch of times but never got a good enough shit. He'd moved about 80 yards but wasn't too far from his typical beat. I really like this fish, I think he's a particularly pretty one. Noah's was also a familiar face too, actually, and one I'd missed a few weeks prior. Both were top tier fish in terms of looks. Really clean, healthy, with nice patterns... really great looking little carp.

I'm far from done with carp trips for the season, I've got plenty of space if you're interested. I'll be fishing primarily in mid-state Connecticut and Northern Rhode Island, tailored towards whatever sort of trip you may be interested in; moving water, lakes, ponds, creeks... whatever. There are a lot of options. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

Geoff's Commons

 One day I had my good friend Geoff Klane (Brackish Flies) tag along with me to experience the mulberry chaos. I'd told him just how abundant the mirrors were in Rhode Island and how good the fishing had been. I fairly certain we had a pretty stellar bite ahead of us. Fish have a very interesting sense of humor though.

We cast at some tailers before we got to any berry trees and I did get one of them to eat. It was a perfect little mirror, precisely what I'd expected and how I'd expected. Even though Geoff's time was limited I was sure we'd get him his first mirror. At the first tree there were geese, and Geoff missed one take. That seemed to put the fish off. At the next, he got... a common. I'd caught more than a dozen carp in Rhode Island before I got the first common so that was a bit of a surprise. Even more surprising still, his second fish was also a common. 

Since commons aren't actually so common here, I thought Geoff's fish were pretty cool. Of course we both still really wanted a mirror, so it was really frustrating when the terrible hook I'd tied the berry fly he was fishing bent out on a good one. Reminder: even small carp will tow the nicest brown trout you've ever caught backwards for miles- don't use mediocre hooks.

Frustratingly, that was that. I'll definitely have Geoff back though and I'm sure he'll get his mirror.

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Decoding the Carp Berry Bite

 Upon my return to the scene of the mulberry carp chaos I'd discovered, I was keen to figure out some new things. I wasn't sure how long the berries would last and I'd not yet figured out a way to get the fish that weren't under the trees to eat a fly. Learning should never stop in fishing. New bites present opportunity to broaden your knowledge, and this mulberry bite was something completely fresh for me. I'd love to be presented with such an interesting and new fishing opportunity each month, but the longer you fish the harder you need to seek these things out. 

Day Two presented the same challenges as the first day, but I was now a little more prepared. I'd tied up a handful of flies that I thought did a good job of imitating both the unripe and ripe berries, and had on a leader more appropriate for the snag-filled environment. I felt I'd be more adept at getting the fish feeding under the berry trees but still wasn't sure about the others. I spent the first hour fruitlessly casting sinking flies- not berries -at tailing fish. They would occasionally look but none ever ate... none of them. It was really frustrating. Eventually I got to the first mulberry tree, where I promptly broke off an atypically large mirror carp for this water body. Fortunately, two casts later I was hooked up again. 

After finding success at the next three berry trees and none whatsoever with the many dozens of fish I cast at away from the trees, I was starting to wonder how these fish could be so picky. I'd think the fish feeding specifically on berries would have more of a food image to follow than those foraging the banks. I thought perhaps I could downsize tippet, but that proved incorrect. No fly change I made changed my success either.

Eventually, after catching yet another beautiful mirror on a floating berry imitation under a tree, I simply left that fly on out of laziness. The next time I saw a tailing fish, I plopped that berry a foot way from him... and I'll be damned if that fish didn't come up and suck down the fly. 

After that, it was just silly. When I put that little purple berry in front of a carp- if it saw it- the fish would at least come up and give it a taste test. Usually it would just inhale it. The fights were nuts; each fish acted utterly shocked that it had been duped. Even though they averaged quite small, these fish pulled like crazy. It was a riot and some of the most fast-paced carp fishing I've experienced. Oh yeah, and virtually all mirrors... that's just what this place has. 

I'm not sure why the berry worked so well for fish away from the trees. It could well be that every fish is aware of the berries even if they aren't actually under the trees at the moment one is presented to them. It could also be the case that this is a behavioral trait that I've just not tapped into before... perhaps I should be casting dry flies at carp more often. I still have a lot to learn and that is just so exciting for me. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

Mulberry Carp Blitz

 We have some mulberry trees here in the northeast, though not that many. I've long heard of the chaos that occurs under berry trees that lean over bodies of water holding carp and catfish. These stories mostly came from the Midwest, and eventually I started to believe that finding carp chowing down on mulberries here in New England was unlikely at best, and my in fact never happen at all. 

Then, completely by accident, I found exactly that in Rhode Island, and it was crazier than my wildest dreams. I'd had a very frustrating morning and was walking along some decent but not that great water when I came to a tree, and underneath it were about a dozen carp. The tree was a mulberry tree, and it was pretty clear why the carp were there. When berries fell from the tree the fish reacted frantically to the sound, trying to beat each other to the food. Looking in my fly box, I didn't really have any berries. What I did have was a Parachute Adams. Maybe they'd eat that? 

It turns out the fish under the trees would eat every fly I threw in their general direction, and all the more so if it made a little "plop". The Adams wasn't ideal but it did take a couple of fish, the first of which was a particularly good looking mirror. 

As someone quite used to lackadaisical, non-committal, and all around disinterested attitudes from this species, it was a bit of a shock for me to see five or six carp charge m fly as soon as it hit the water. It really was a shocking experience. I threw mops, Black Ops, Hare's Ears, and a few other flies... they all got eaten. It was wild. 

In the mix with the slough of mirrors, I actually got my first Rhode Island common. That's how odd this fishery is compared to other East Coast carp fisheries... it is so loaded with mirrors that commons are, well, rare. It makes no sense.

Of course, the fish at each tree did slowly get wise as I caught them. They didn't become picky or anything like that, but they'd spook out as soon as I'd caught a few. Really that wasn't shocking, but at the time I couldn't figure out how to get the fish I was finding away from the trees to eat. If anything, those seemed more difficult than an carp I'd encountered anywhere. They were completely unwilling and completely spooked from the fly. Eventually I would figure out how to get these ones to eat but it didn't happen this day.

Under one tree I actually caught a turtle. It was a red-eared slider, a common invasive turtle species. These sliders are very pretty and easy pets, but as an invasive species they can wreak havoc... not unlike the very carp I was fishing for. The can be a big problem for native turtles.

As the day's fishing came to an end, I'd caught a half dozen mirrors and one common, a few of them on small dry flies. It was crazy, but it had only just begun. I'd be figuring out a lot over the next couple weeks.

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. I truly would not be able to keep this going without you wonderful folks!

No Smoke, Plenty of Mirrors: RI Carp Fishing

Last week I again found myself able to target carp in Rhode Island. The weather was good if not nearly perfect, and I had most of a day to work with. Things has changed substantially since the last time I'd fished the area, but I actually suddenly had more water available than I had before. The river had dropped dramatically, and flowing side channels were now quiet oxbows. There was abundant poison ivy, which doesn't really effect me at all, but also loads of stinging nettle, which most certainly does. It's a pretty common plant in muddy flood plains. I encounter it frequently, given my chosen pursuit. As much as it tried though, the nettles couldn't prevent me from getting to the carp. 

I found a good looking stillwater near the river and began walking the bank. I made it about halfway around the pond before spotting two carp: a small common and a slightly bigger mirror tailing in some bushes. They were nearly impossible to reach, and the mediocre shots I got certainly didn't get the job done. The fish quietly departed, not quite spooking but definitely aware of my presence. Continuing around the pond, I eventually found the mother load. At the shallow north end were dozens of carp. Some were sun bathing, some were tailing, and others were sucking down cottonwood seeds at the surface. Each requires slightly different presentations. Sun bathing carp are easily spooked and not inclined to eat, but a gentle presentation with a lightly weighted Hare's Ear, Mop Fly, or some sort of damsel fly nymph imitation can sometimes take them. I hooked two sun bathers, landed the smaller of them and broke off the larger. Weed growth was significant where most of the fish were... not a recipe for easily won battles. 

Two other fish that I duped were tailing, and both took mop flies. One broke me off in a sunken tree, the other I managed to get to hand. Both were mirrors. In fact, other than that first common I saw, no other carp I spotted weren't mirrors. Some were fully scaled, others somewhat linear, and one was nearly scale-less. The abundance of uniquely scaled carp in this fishery is remarkable and will take a while for me to get used to. 

The surface feeding cotton wood seed eater pose a bit of a conundrum. In my limited experience I've found them very difficult to catch. They are often sucking down seeds in no particular path or pattern, and aren't eating just one at a time. It makes it very difficult to figure out where to place a dry fly and I'm always hesitant to plop it on their heads. I got two takes on dries, neither particularly good. In both cases my fly was promptly rejected. I did get one cotton wood seed sipper to take a mop fly though, which was interesting. I did land that one. 

Eventually I did have to leave, and the fish were still just as active on my way out. I really am enjoying learning this fishery though. It is distinctly different in many ways from what I have here at home. Mirrors aside, the structure and behavior of the fish is just different enough to keep it from feeling normal. It's pretty cool. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Rhode Island Mirror Carp on the Fly

 I've wanted to catch a mirror carp for years. Mirror carp are a genetic variation of common carp, believed to have first been cultured to make them easier to clean and ea. They are now mostly bred for aesthetic purposes. They're characterized by irregular scaling. The array of possible patterns- ranging from fully scaled to linear to nearly scale-less flanks -is quite impressive. Leather carp, not considered mirror carp, lack scales entirely. Though the genes that result in the scale abnormality are recessive, they manage to linger in populations where large numbers of mirrors were introduced for a long time. I've only ever seen a handful of mirror carp in Connecticut, even though a friend caught one out of the very lake I live right down the road from. My friend Mark got a mirror this spring, and I really started to get obsessed with the idea of getting one. 

Luckily, perhaps best mirror carp fishery in the Northeast is just miles from my partner's house. I made some half-hearted winter attempts and found very little life, but I knew that come spring I'd get shots if I was persistent. What I wasn't ready for at all was the shear abundance of mirror carp in this population.

One evening, while Cheyenne was out with friends, I headed to the river. It was my first trip in hospitable weather and my hopes were high. The first fish I saw was a common, cruising at a fast pace in the middle of the canal I was walking- not a viable target. For the next three hours I ended up seeing a few dozen carp, mostly tailing, many out of reach on the opposite side. Shockingly I never ended up seeing another that was definitely a common, every fish I got a good look at was a mirror. I never really got a shot but I didn't end up taking a skunk. I saw a decent chain pickerel cruising up the center of the canal just a few inches below the surface. I cast my mop fly a few feet in front of it, started stripping, and that guy came right over and crushed it.

The next morning I had a bit of free time again and went back out. This time I got a couple shots in the canal, but again came up empty. I walked along, looking in ever viable spot, and finally found a school of large fish, all very clearly mirrors, sunning behind a deadfall. These fish are usually extremely hard to convince to eat. I made the best of it though, making the gentlest possible presentation in front of the largest of the group. That animal didn't quite spook but definitely reacted negatively. The smaller one next to it whipped around and sucked in the fly. What proceeded was the most hair raising carp battle I've ever experienced. That fish was in and out of deadfalls constantly for the next 15 minutes. I was using 6 pound tippet and a 5wt. Nothing about my setup was geared towards keeping a 20 pound fish out of cover, and I didn't. Somehow, though, every time the fish made its way into the mess I managed to get it back out. When I got my hands on it, I knew a genuine miracle had just transpired. My leader was completely un-chaffed. That just seemed physically impossible, I'd felt my line rubbing on logs and branches numerous times. I really don't know how it worked out. 

With my first mirror out of the way, I'm excited to explore more of this fishery. I've long seen photos of big Rhode Island mirror carp caught on bait, I think its about time someone started showing them flies. 

  Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.