CARPTORIOUS: Paradigm shift

I have been having a really hard time with my fishing ever since the flood.  The flood was a major event and it changed everything overnight.  Water temperatures, clarity, flows and even river course changed and every pattern I have figured out for September / October went right out the window with it.   As a result this is a sketch of what happened to my incredibly awesome fishing year:

Earlier this week I was commiserating with a friend about my situation and he asked me why I didn't just go beat up on some pond carp.  You know, get the skunk off.  My answer was that ponds on the front range always shut down sometime in September.  I don't even remember when I established that paradigm or on what basis - but our discussion got me thinking and today I proved it wrong.  Very wrong!

I don't know how it is every day or on every pond, but on this beautiful late October day the carp at one of my favorite ponds were shallow and hungry!  Once I settled in on an egg-yarn head Egan's Head-Stand and a very very slow hook-set it was "I spot em I got em".  Its a good thing too because I was mere days from ending a streak of catching a carp in each of the last 22 months.

Stolen Moments

As you may know in the early season the daily high is probably fourth or fifth on my list of important weather patterns.  I believe that the overnight low temp, a somewhat stable weather pattern (preferably a slowly warming trend) and good sunlight are all slightly more important.

Well, starting on Thursday we started a four or five day stretch that was probably the best match for what I am looking for yet this year.  I was supposed to fish all day Friday but a 24 hour stomach Flu put the kibosh on that.  I tried to man up.  I really did, but after several hours wandering aimlessly and deliriously I gave up went home and slept nearly 17 hours straight.

I honestly can't remember - Is the photo before or after I caught this carp?

Fortunately in the past year and a half I have gotten much more effective at hooking up in quick outings.  The key of course is throwing your pride under the bus and chasing cute little pond carp and that is what I did - every time I got the chance this weekend.

Biggest carp of the weekend.  Yeah, you read me right.

Thars Gold in Them Thar Ponds!

Same shot zoomed in.  Juvenile pond carp are often VERY lightly and brightly colored

In fits, starts and stolen moments I managed to have a pretty good several days in the end.  The carp I caught were small but man did I have some just incredible takes!

The most valuable fly, by far, was John Montana's Hybrid.

HYBRID RULES!!!!!!!

This little fella moved THREE feet on a Hybrid.  Down the Chute!

This wasn't even the carp I was casting at!  He came out of nowhere to hammer the Hybrid.

I have not put it in front of any South Platte carp yet but the pond carp around here LOVE this fly tied on a size 8 Scorpion Gaper.

And speaking of the DSP, it is hard to completely ignore my beloved river at any time of year.  Unfortunately, this year it has been a royal pain due to low flows and sedimentation but I did manage this mutant in limited action on a Leather Trouser Worm.  This is the second time I have caught a smushed-face DSP carp.  Or is this just an extreme manifestation of the Angelina Jolie lip theorem?

My only river carp this weekend.  Mutant or further proof of the Angelina Jolie Theorem?

This time I know for sure.  This was a picture of the lip less carp above BEFORE I caught it!

My Old Friend Kahn

I ran into an old friend today.  I will be spending enough time chasing this particular fish that a name will make things easier.  Lets call this fish Kahn.  Genghis Kahn that is.  I know that seems like a pretty vicious name for a "vegetarian" but I know first hand that this particular grass carp craves protein.  Why not? When you are at least 4 or 5 times bigger than the other fish in the pond and you are hungry you eat what you want when you want it.

Today Kahn was busy defoliating this poor innocent fallen tree.  Vicious beast.  I had no credible shot but it was nice to run into an old friend.

 

Carp Pond C meets Gregg's Eggs

Ponds are a good finger to scratch that still-water itch this time of year.  Larger still-waters can produce occasionally but are extremely hit-or-miss.  While pond carp are usually (but not always) small the fishing can be really interesting. 

My favorite ponds are a series of three that impound a small stream nose-to tail with a 30 foot walk from one pond to the next.  Those 30 feet may as well be miles because each pond fishes completely differently.  This weekend I had a couple of hours here and there to give it a go.  Only one of the three (call it Pond C) had anything going on.  Pond C nearly always has something going on, for all the good it has done me.  Nearly half of this pond is a shallow mud flat.  The fish are numerous, very small and have no fear of man.  For 8 months out of the year you find fish tailing there in 3" to 6" of water and you often get close enough to touch them with your rod tip.

Sounds easy right?  Well, while fish in Pond A and B are butter, these fish are TOUGH.  It is by far and away the most difficult of the three because these fish are doing something I think of as sleep-feeding.  They just go about their business grazing through the muck with virtually no interest in whatever flies you might put in their way.  It doesn't matter what fly and what presentation.  Your fly may as well not exist.  I have been fishing this pond for four years and everything in the arsenal has accounted for something on the order of 10 fish! 

Well, the arsenal didn't have eggs in it.  It isn't very glorious but they went nutso for the egg I recieved from Gregg in the fly-swap on a lob-drag and dead drop.  I had more takes in 4 hours of fishing this weekend than I had all last year there.  The takes were very very slow followed by an instant ejection and I couldn't figure out the timing until I got to see one suck it and eject it head on but after that it was absolute mayhem by Pond C standards. 

I think I need a smaller egg for these fish but I have at least one solution for Pond C. 

This unusually stout and healthy fellow took line.  That is a first in this pond and earned him another first.  An itty bitty hero-shot.  Trout-palm style.

NOTE:  Just realized today was Easter and I broke out the Eggs.  Just a freaky coincidence, no truth to the rumor that the Easter Bunny took the photo.