Two Tone Backing

This report and these pictures are from a day in the first week of August. I got behind on my blogging back then. I had rough drafted a Word document but just never finished it until this morning.

On this particular day I just got lucky I guess. There was blue sky, a slight wind, and the water was just a bit off color. I believe there are Carp all up and down the Columbia but that doesn't mean they are always going to be where I want them to be. I want them to be in easy to wade, shallow water, near a good place to park. I don't ask for much.

This was just a better day than some of my days the week before in late July. I was seeing more fish and best of all they were liking my flies. This one liked the Chocolate Cherry.



Three captures in the 16-18 pound range is always nice. Somewhere I read that 16-18 pound Carp are "apex athletes". I think it was John Montana who said that but I'm not sure. The three larger fish I caught sure earned that moniker. One of them was 18 pounds 9 ounces. I'm still calling that 18 pounds since he didn't make it all the way to 19. It was an amazing, strong, persistent fish. It took me farther into the backing than fish I have caught this summer weighing several pounds more. I honestly didn't realize that the first forty or maybe fifty yards of my backing has become stained from the river. The backing was peeling off the reel and I saw it had just changed to a nice, clean white. I have two tone backing and I didn't even know it. Several times she made the 1X, 10 pound, fluorocarbon tippet whine from too much pressure.

After she showed me the clean backing she took off again.







I felt fortunate to get the fish in. This picture isn't a close up, straight on view like I prefer but I didn't want to traumatize the fish with more poses. This is the fat girl that showed me that I had two tone backing. She took a #8 Carp Carrot tied on a Tiemco 3769 hook.



This was also a very strong fish.






I thanked this Carp for coming out to play and sent him back home.