This has created some real challenges to the wading, fly rod, Carp angler. Naively I have gone to some of my usual haunts thinking the water will be "just a bit higher". Dear God, the water is so high I can't even get in the river.
The name of the game has become adaptability. Yes, adaptability. I have to look for fish where I have never seen them before. The reason I have never seen Carp in some of the places I have been catching them is because I have never seen water there.
I am literally walking in submerged desert, sage brush, other brush, and trees. I am finding Carp in some of these places but often in tight quarters. By tight quarters I mean they are holding and cruising near, or even in, all kinds of hazards.
In many cases the Carp I have been catching are very close to me. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had the rod in my right hand and the fly in my left hand. A fish would come in to view so close to me that I just sort of pitched the fly (like a shovel pass) towards the fish. In other cases the fish is so close I just hold out the rod and drop the fly in front of the fish. I have caught some fish with legitimate casts but not the majority recently. In some cases I have made some very short casts to fish that are just of reach for a drop. I'm not sure if the fly seems to plop more because it is so near me and I can hear it better or because it is hitting the water harder. I have not had as much chance to cast to fish lately as I have had pitching, plopping, and dropping to them. It works so I'm not complaining. I am ready for the water level to go down though.
I pitched a strike to this Carp and he hit it!

One thing about the high water...the fish seem more concentrated.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThat is SO TRUE! I walked two miles and didn't see a fish. Then in this one particular area there were hundreds of fish. Crazy...
ReplyDeletePitch, plop, drop ... Denny Brauer is very proud of y'all.
ReplyDelete