Carpe Diem Memorial Day

If you have read my earlier post on waters fly fishers forget about you may remember that I said I would have a picture of a 15 lbs carp soon. Well here it is. I spent 2 days trying to get one of these guys and I finally made the perfect cast and played the fish just right to bring it to net. My wife even fell ass backwards into the creek trying to net the thing (that's is why I love her), so I had to include her in one picture. After some research and a couple of days of observation , I figured out their feeding habits and it was game on. These fish are super challenging to catch and in most small rivers they are the biggest thing that swims. The fight was awesome after 5 seconds on the line I saw my backing and once I caught up it was a dog fight from there. I was using a 5wt and 4X, so I couldn't lean on it too much and I didn't have the power in the rod to lift the fish, but I brought it to net in 5 minutes. 7X and 20 inch rainbows on the San Juan in New Mexico taught me a lot about fighting fish and what not to do to break them off. I am hooked on carp fishing pun intended.

Streams Fly Fisherman Forget About

I had a chance to fish one of the numerous lowland streams that feed into the Potomac in West Virginia this weekend and it was a blast. Trout obsessed fly fisherman tend to forget about these stream that are all over the place in our area. After being in Colorado for the last 5 years, it is amazing the amount of water there is in the Appalachians. These streams are incredible ecosystems filled with a variety of fish. I caught small mouth bass, rock bass, sunfish, fall fish and even hooked a 15 lb car that broke me off in short order. I will learn how to catch the monster carp that live in this stream! Signs of spring were all over the place from red bud trees to baby robins and spawning bass nests. It is a pleasure to fish these lowland creeks that have every bit of the beauty of trout streams. Many of your favorite put and take trout streams are fisheries like this one in the summer. I plan on finding more of these streams in search of small mouth in the coming months, so I will let you know what I find.