Cyprinus Carpio

For several months my friend Dave and I have been discussing targeting common carp at a local reservoir.  These carp are accustomed to being fed bread from people on the docks.  We thought we could have success by showing up in the off hours of human traffic and throw our own bread in the water to get the carp feeding.  Then we would attempt to hook up to these carp by casting bread flies to the feeding carp and hopefully fool them into taking the fake.  Definitely not traditional fly fishing but similar to the accepted practice of the "bait-n-switch" used to catch sharks or sailfish on the fly.  We each tied up various versions of bread flies using a variety of materials.  The common element was something white that would look like a piece of bread in the water.  My favorite looking fly was made with the core material of a nylon rope.  We met in the morning and launched our watercraft into the lake and headed toward the docks of interest.  We chummed up the water with bread and nothing happened for quite some time.  Then after waiting for a bit a few carp showed up and started vigorously smacking the bread on the surface.  We both cast into the area and bam!  Fish on for me first.  While Dave was shooting video of my battle a fish slammed his bread fly as well.  Double hook up with our target species!  It was my first carp on the fly rod and I learned very quickly how hard these fish fight and how much endurance they have.  We you manage to get them "close to the boat" the battle is only half over.  And once you finally can see your leader these fish will continue to bulldog you making mini runs and trying to stay down as much as they can.  Then once they see the net they get an additional surge of energy and try everything possible to evade it.  An extremely worthy opponent!  With the help of Dave and his huge landing net I finally had my first fly rod carp in hand.

I got a few pics of my fish then proceeded to help Dave net his fish and also take a few pics.  

My rod was getting in the way so I decided to stick it between my back and the float tube.  After the commotion died and we were focused on getting back to fishing I went to grab my rod but it was nowhere to be seen.  I quickly looked at Dave thinking I may have given it to him to hold.  Nope, my rod somehow slipped off my tube and was now sitting in 30 feet of water!  Bummer!  I was a little upset but just had to laugh it off.  Luckily Dave had a backup 7 weight he let me borrow and it worked great!  We periodically would get carp coming through to feed on the bread.  It was never a big pod of frenzied carp but usually a few boiling over our bread.  Five more fish were landed between the two of us.  A few break offs occurred as well.  In one instance Dave hooked up and the fish was so strong he could not turn or slow down the fish.  It ran way under the dock and managed to get wrapped around something then broke off.  All the carp we caught ranged between 7 and 12 pounds.  I managed to catch the 12 pounder pictured below.  Overall it was an awesome time fishing for these beasts.

 Even though I was thoroughly satisfied with my first carp experience I still wanted more and we decided to return the next day.  The fishing was a lot tougher because the carp that did come through would grab a few bites of the bread then move on.  They did not stick around long at all.  I don't know if they caught onto us the previous day or not.  I managed to break off a fish or two.  Dave had a leviathan on at one point that ran super hard under his kayak and broke him off, it was a determined and strong fish.  Toward the very end of our time out a fish decided to show up and munch on the bread.  On his way out I managed to cast my fly and put it right on his nose.  He took my fly then all heck broke loose.  My reel was screaming as this fish ran back and forth.  At one point he ran straight to the bottom then came straight back up to the surface.  This was definitely the most spastic carp I had battled over the two days of fishing for them.  Finally I landed a beautiful carp over the 9 pound mark.

We did some bluegill fishing while waiting for the carp.  Dave managed to catch several really nice gills and a beautiful hybrid bluegill/green sunfish.

I managed a few bluegills as well. It was a great two days fishing that left me wanting to target carp a whole lot more often!  

Mixed Bag

I headed to a small community pond with a few friends, Blake and Colin.  We caught a mixed bag of crappies, green sunfish, and bluegills.  I'll break the afternoon into three parts.  Part I:  There was an intermittent breeze that would kick up and we saw a few fish rising which were most likely eating bugs that were being blown off the trees above.  Blake started "swimming" his fly right near the surface of the water which started producing a lot of fish.  We decided to switch to some foam beetles which drew plenty of hits and fish on top.  Blake even got several crappie on his beetle pattern.  We caught quite a few crappie overall but the green sunfish ruled the first part of the day.  Colin used my vintage Fenwick FF806 glass rod and was doing just fine tallying up the fish.

Part II:  We walked down a different bank and noticed some spawning areas where the green sunfish were milling around in the shallows guarding nesting areas.  The fish were ultra aggressive and we started pulling them out one after another.  They were so aggressive I switched it up and put on a red foam popper which I caught some very nice and chunky green sunfish on.  We all added many more fish to our tally in this area, mostly green sunfish or "black perch" as Blake called them.  At one point Blake added a dropper off the beetle and three separate times landed fish on both flies at the same time!

Part III:  Colin and I continued fishing the nesting area while Blake wandered down to one of the four corners of the pond.  He called us over after a bit as he seemed to be on to something special.  He was on to something!  He was catching nice bluegills practically every cast.  There was probably a ten foot square area about 25 feet off shore where he was landing his fly.  We started targeting the area and we too started catching some nice chunky bluegills.  Blake must have found either a big stationary school or a big time nesting area because the small spot was machine like in producing bluegill after bluegill.  It was nonstop hits and/or landed fish for quite awhile.  We kept catching fish out of the area right until I had to leave.  Overall it was a killer day and we probably all landed around 50 fish each, maybe even more since we lost count early on.    Flies fished included foam beetles, panfish poppers, small clouser minnows, scuds, myakka minnows, and a variety of other weighted panfish style flies.

Crappies on Glass

A few months back I won an old Fenwick FF806 fiberglass fly rod off of ebay.  Among glass enthusiasts it is known to be a very versatile rod and a great caster.  I tried lawn casting just after it arrived in the mail but it did not feel all that great and I was a little unsure of my purchase.  I was pretty constricted though and was hitting a tree
during my back cast half the time.  Well luckily over Spring Break I had several opportunities to meet up with Dave (FishnDave) at his local crappie pond.  I was able to open the rod up a little more out on the pond and it really shined.  I paired it up with an vintage Pflueger Sal Trout click pawl reel and some sort of double taper fly line that came on the reel.  I could roll cast this rod just as far as my modern Sage graphite rod!  Needless to say I was highly impressed and thoroughly satisfied in taking my first step into vintage glass rods. The rod definitely made me slow down my casting stroke but it is fun that even small fish put a nice bend in glass.  I'll be fishing this vintage combo a lot more often this year!  The fishing was pretty good overall during the break despite some questionable fishing weather and many crappie and green sunfish were landed.  Flies fished by Dave and me included Myakka minnows, microjigs, boa yarn leeches, craft fur clousers, orange legged mohair bodied nymph (something I threw together that caught a few fish with) and some others with and without thingamabobber indicators.  

Dave braving the elements

Micro green sunfish caught on a microjig

Back to Trouting

I headed back to the Rockies over the holidays and of course was excited to sample a few of the tail waters I had grown accustomed to over the years. In the Midwest I have made the transition to warm water fly fishing, mostly in stillwater. I love the mixed bag you find in warm water fly fishing but I was excited to see if I could dredge up a few trout out in the frozen tundra. David and I headed up to a tailwater that sits in between two reservoirs and found a beautiful looking stretch of river. We had zero hits in the first good looking hole.

We moved down to a fairly deep and uniform stretch just upstream from a small bridge and after several drifts David hooked up with a decent brown which put a nice little bend in his rod.

It was all good water but the fish didn't feel like playing all that much so we headed down to a different section of river.

I must mention I tried borrowing Jim's fly rod, but when I went to open the tube and piece the rod together there was nothing inside except a rod sock. It was not a big deal since David and I usually trade off drifts anyway at the best holes. We did just that and David made a really nice drift on his turn and something munched on his nymph and tore off downstream. We were hoping it was a big brown which are fairly common to the river but it turned out to be a Rocky Mountain bonefish (a.k.a mountain whitefish). David let me show it off to the camera.


Not fast fishing but the inversion resulted in a beautiful day once you got out of the valley.

I made sure I grabbed the right rod tube the next time we headed out. We went to one of my favorite holes that holds large numbers of fish but most are 14 inch cookie cutters. I have seen some large browns porpoise in the hole but most are middle weight and pretty scrappy. If you hit a good hatch at the hole in can be nuts with dozens of fish rising. Despite a few midges the bug activity was fairly minimal. We worked hard and nymphed up a few stubborn browns of the cookie cutter variety.

We tried heading up ice fishing the day after a big storm and we could not make it up to the reservoir because deep snow was covering the road and the plows had not cleared the way in. We should have brought our fly rods but left them at home. We still wanted to get some fishing in so we decided to hit a river with our spinning gear. We had our big white tube jigs on and started getting some good follows right off the bat. I casted into a fairly small side channel and as my jig bounced up into a shallow riffle I saw a fish in hot pursuit. He nailed it and I landed the fish. The fish probably went 13 inches and I was surprised it hit such a large jig. I have heard fish will hit large prey in comparison to their body size but this was the best real life example I had seen. I wish I had taken a picture. While on the river we used some ski style masks we got for Christmas and I had to get a picture of David looking like a river ninja.

A few days later we tried heading up ice fishing and we made it. It turned out to be a perfect afternoon. The best bite is early morning and it proved to be slow. We thought it might turn on as the sun faded in the late afternoon and we were right. There was a burst of activity as the sun started to disappear behind the mountains. In fact, I probably caught the largest trout of my life but it was too cold and my camera would not turn on. It was a beautiful Bear Lake cutthroat that was probably around 23 inches and it had some girth to it for sure. We did get a picture of one of the other fish we caught.


Before the early evening bite turned on David tried hiking up a hill in the deep snow and sledding down it. The snow was too deep so his attempt ended up being more like a belly flop. It was pretty funny. Overall it was great to get out fishing with David again back "home".

Allen Fly Fishing

I ran into Allen Fly Fishing on a Facebook advertisement. Or maybe it was a banner on one of the fly fishing forums. Anyway, I did some research and ran into quite a buzz about the products. There was little if any negative reviews about the reels, lines, and a host of other fly fishing gear. I started following the latest developments with the reels. Once I saw the new Allen "Trout 5/7" I was sold. These were some of the best looking reels out there and at great prices. Then Justin (the owner) came out with a new version of the "Alpha" fly reel which looked equally awesome. I had to decide whether I wanted a new reel for my all purpose 5 weight rod (the Trout 5/7) or the new Alpha 7/8 for my carp rod. So intriguing were these reels that I sold my go-to reel I use on my 5 weight to fund the purchase of the Allen. To even further solidify my confidence in purchasing an Allen reel I found out that my friend Dave (FishnDave) had bought a few of the reels and some other gear and gave me positive feedback about the reels, lines, etc. The light weight (5.37 oz) of the Alpha 7/8 pushed me toward that reel since I only had a heavy clunker for my 8 weight. I had other reels that were adequate to cover my 5 weight needs. I got the Allen in the mail and I am thoroughly pleased and excited about the reel. It feels so light in my hand and Justin did a good job taking out any unnecessary metal.

Not only that but he did it in a way that is very aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

This is a beautiful reel. The gunmetal finish looks great and glistens when any sunlight hits it. I still need to throw backing and a fly line on the reel but before doing so I wanted to take a few glam shots. If anyone is looking for a nice machined reel at a great price I suggest visiting allenflyfishing.com. Justin has been praised for his excellent customer service as well. If any reel breaks he will fix or replace it for you. Unfortunately I have to wait several months for things to thaw out around here before I can put this beauty to the test against some large cyprinus carpio.

Tribute to Summer

These days I'm longing for the early evening serenade of cicadas in the trees. Here is to warmer times...

I found this guy (or girl) outside my house. They usually are pretty elusive. My 2 year old son does a great cicada imitation.

Crappie Day

The weather was cold and drizzly but after finishing a test in the morning I thought I would head back to a local crappie pond and see what I could find. I basically just circled the pond slowly and the crappies were willing. I was using a white micro jig (fly) with a red collar. I suspended it under an indicator and slowly worked the fly in short strips. They loved the fly and I didn't change it once. I brought my iPod Touch 4g along and decided to shoot video with it. It was awkward but I would bring the fish in so I could shoot with one hand then lift the rod to bring the fish in the rest of the way. Most of the fight was over at that point but it was still fun to capture the fish in the water for a few seconds. Anyway, no pics in this post just this video shot and edited entirely with my iPod. Hopefully I can figure out how to export the video in HD quality in the future.