Moments on the Fly: I'm Talkin' Here!

 Garth and I were exploring a new backwater with carp and bowfin potential when a call I got a call that I had to take. It isn't especially common that I answer the phone while fishing but if I expect an important call I will take it, or if someone that doesn't normally call does I may answer. But I'll sometimes leave my phone down for days on a long trip and certainly on a day trip. While I talked, I kept my eyes on the water. There'd been a few tailing carp working in some weeded areas. Every now and then one would work its way into a clear spot and tail beautifully. Roughly midway through the call, a shot presented itself that I couldn't refuse. A sizable yellow ghost carp made itself a fantastic target. I crept into position, phone tucked between my ear and shoulder, and managed a good cast. The fish moved on the fly and took. I lifted and it was on. Now I had to battle a roughly 13 pound carp on a 5 weight and 6lb tippet in heavy weeds and not drop my phone in the mud. 

It might have been one of my favorite feats of angling prowess... of course I must credit Garth for lending an assist and interpreting wordless directions as well. But I don't think the person on the other end of the line had any idea what was happening on my end at all. I hooked and fought the fish and we landed and photographed it without taking the phone off my ear or interrupting the call. Considering how hard carp are too feed, I'm proud to have managed the task while a significant part of my focus was elsewhere. Though perhaps it isn't the best idea that I take important calls on the water anymore. Not because I can't catch fish, but because when I'm fishing there isn't much that can fully pull my attention way from the water and its surrounding landscape and ecology. 

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Giants and Ghosts

Yesterday Noah and I went to play with some carp with both bait and artificials. The pond is one Mark Alpert and I call the "Garbage Pond". Because there is an awful lot of garbage in the vicinity and in the pond itself. I take some of it away but it is very much a loosing battle. There are fish there though, and if there are fish I will fish for them.

I don't have very many conventional rods and reels any more, and I like fighting fish on a fly rod more anyway, so I fished bread and corn on a 20ft 8lb leader with my 5wt CGR and cast an orange mop fly with my 8wt while the bait soaked. Honestly, the bite was not as great as I expected. But we did catch some carp, and some exceptionally cool ones.

Out of all of the fat ad healthy little commons I caught I did get two fish that had a very different color, a type of carp commonly referred to as "ghost carp". The different pigmentation is the result of hybridization between a koi and a common carp. The white ghost carp, which is what both of mine were, have genes past down from Purachina Ogoh koi, also known as Platinum Ogon koi. I caught one on the fly and one on bait. They were very cool looking carp!

Of course, in this pond where I had never seen a fish even in the teens in weight, I managed to catch a fish well over 20 pounds. Disappointingly it was on the bait, not on the fly. But it was still a carp over 20 pounds on a 5wt fiberglass rod, and that is not to be taken lightly.

Any way you do it, catching fish is fun as hell. It just so happens to be a little bit more fun, for me at least, with a fly. So next time I think I'm going to have to catch the giants on the fly, good and proper, instead of on a fly rod with bait.