The Good: I had much to be grateful for on this day. Getting a day pass from the Mommasita was wonderful. I love my lady, she treats me so good. It was hard to find feeding fish today, but any day were you catch some carp on a fly is a good one. Even if it is just one 23" common. Late in the outing my friend Mike called me up with a line on some grass carp. It was a generous move for him to take me to this spot and for this I am extremely grateful. There were at least six large grass carp feeding furiously in a relatively small area and within 20 minutes I had hooked and landed a big one (32lb, 40").
The Bad: Unfortunately, after winning an epic battle with said grassie I was dismayed to discover that my large olive MMF with the eyes cut out with pliers on the spot (best grassie fly I could come up) was just too light and had not gotten down as deep as I thought. These carp were tailing with an amazing amount of forward velocity. As a result the rapidly moving fish had tailed right under the fly and was hooked right in front of the tail.
I feel like a bit of a shit for being bummed out after all the things I have to be grateful for. Therefore I am going to just let it go. It happens, we will get em next time. I really don't need to be obsessed with another species thank you very much but I am pretty sure that Mike and I will be back. With a box of carefully weighted grass carp flies of course!
No pics? Grasses are tough man...I have caught two. One about 15 lbs in fl and one (general Sherman) that probably weighed about 55 lbs. In or and wa it is illegal to specifically target them.
ReplyDeleteGoo call on the ruling though. They gotta eat it!
Mike actually took video and a picture on his cell phone. He called later to say something went wrong with his phone. I think the fish gods probably intervened and performed a memory wipe.
ReplyDeleteI like this blog a lot. I just caught my first grass carp a week ago. I have pics and the story of it on my blog. Caught it on a small foam popper. http://fishwithkev.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteKev, awesome! I will check you the post later. Popper...go figure!
ReplyDeleteSee "Hitting Foul" section of Landing Carp on a Fly Rod...
ReplyDeleteYes, the irony was not lost on me. Ummmm....do as I say not as I do???? :)
ReplyDeleteGary and Dave recommend the pipe cleaner fly they developed back in the day for salmon on the PM. Grassies love em.
ReplyDeleteStill trying to get a Grassie over 35lbs myself,,,great report amigo, the lakes are primed for feeders lately it seems!
ReplyDeleteMiles: The Pipe-Cleaner Fly. Adored by slackers and snaggers the world over. Speaking of slackers and snaggers, I seem to remember seing at least one in your box back in the day....
ReplyDeleteTroutdawg: Thank god. Finally. Twas a weird April/May. My favorite lake finally had some feeders this afternoon though, things are defenitely looking up!
Your mistaken. That was a treble with yarn tied to it in my box.
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