Fly Carpin' In January

So this is a fitting follow-up to the last post! This warm spell has most of the ponds around here ice free, and any time the water isn't hard it's worth taking a shot at some carp, particularly in small ponds where they don't really have any place to go. Rik joined me for this outing, I was glad to show him the carp scene. Whenever someone expresses interest in catching carp on the fly I do my best to help them learn more about it, it is such an untapped fishery; at least as far as fly fishing. Even better, it is much more resilient than the trout fisheries we have.

This would be the earliest in the year I had ever fished for carp. There was about an inch of heavy wet sleet on the ground. The water was all wide open. No ice at all. Within a few minutes at our first destination we were seeing bubbling fish. Then something crazy happened. Rik caught a bass! We didn't get to take a picture of it, but that is by far the earliest in the year I have personally seen a bass caught on the fly here in CT. VERY cool.

After a little while at the first pond we decided to let it rest for a bit and warm up a bit. We explored two other bodies of water. The first was probably too deep, even if there were carp there. The second is pretty good in the summer and fall but on this outing it was chocolate milk, not very conducive for spotting carp, so we returned to the first pond.

 The wind was starting to let up a bit, and we were able to find some bubbling fish in the shallower upper end. We took turns casting at them since there weren't very many. Eventually, I got one to eat my Black Ops. Rik and I both saw my line twitch a bit. I made two short strips then lifted the rod. I must has done it at the exact wrong time, because there was just a tremendous yank and the carp made off with my fly, leaving my rather frustrated.

Well, that was a bit unfortunate, but it is hard to complain about an outing like that in January!