The Summer Grind

Somebody mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was getting spoiled.  That between  the superb carpin at the Columbia and the unusually extraordinary fishing in CO when I got back I would have a hard time adjusting to reality.  The reality is that fly fishing for carp is rarely easy.  It is getting easier every year as my experience grows but there are still times when I have to grind out the fish.

Full summer has arrived to the front range.  I am still catching a fish or two every time out which is satisfying since last year July really handed it to me, but the numbers are way down and so is the average size.

My buddy Mike managed to grind out this one last weekend on a small black nymph.  We only had about 5 or 6 shots in a couple of hours but managed one apiece. 

On Friday morning I took the Mommasita out.  Because I am clueless on how to set her up with a spinning rod she had no luck but she took some nice pictures of me landing a decent fish.  This fish was extremely satisfying since I coaxed it with a olive / black backstabber at range (60 feet?) with small slow strips.  Once again I only had about 4 or 5 good shots but managed to hook two.

Mike and I went back out for a couple of hours this morning to a small lake where he had found dozens of fish feeding tight and happy yesterday.  Today they had switched into a bizarre feeding mode where pods of 5 to 15 fish were packed up and cruising 20 to 50 feet out sucking on some kind of emergers 2" under the surface.  I am sure that is a awesome sight for somebody who knows what the heck to thrown, how to throw "it" and happens to have "it" on hand.  For me it was a disaster.  Mike missed a couple that sucked and ejected a caddis dry fly he happened to have on hand but I was staring down the barrel of my first skunk in months.  In the last opening in the bushes and the last cast of the day I found this pasty white fella tailing with his back out of the water and his head under a bank.  Thankfully I knew exactly what to do because this was one of two shots to tailing fish I had all morning.

It has been a bit of a grind lately!