A Decisive Turn to the Fly

Yikes, I haven't made a post for a year.  You would think I gave up fishing.  Perish the thought!  I will fish until the end of my days or until my aging body will not allow me to.

I have fished a lot these past 12 months; in particular these last two and a half months.  In March I even fished for tarpon in Puerto Rico.  I would post a picture...but ammm.....hmmmm.....there is the little problem of not getting any of them to the boat.  Just imagine the tarpon; I still do...

A good number of fat trout were nice enough to take my fly in the late winter and early spring.  I sure appreciated them getting me through those short, cloudy days.

In his 1835 poem, "Locksley Hall" Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, "...In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."  Yeah, yeah, yeah, great poem and all Al, but I gotta tell you, in the spring this "young" man's fancy turns to thoughts of carp fishing.  Yes indeed!  I'm in love all year long with my wife but in the spring and summer I'm thinking about tailing carp, good casts, well placed flies, visual takes, and screaming reels.  Oh hell yes baby!  

Caught on April 7, this was my first carp of the season; that's the earliest I have ever fished for them.

    The weather was surprisingly mild; I sure appreciated some willing carp taking a size 8 Black Betty--at the beginning of April no less.

    Most carp I catch in the PNW take the fly very subtly; kind of like they can hardly be bothered. There is an exception for everything and this carp sure was.  He made a decisive turn for the fly.  The original video is HD and is much more clear than the E Blogger optimized version.  You can see a clearer version on my Instagram account--@JimPankiewicz  

  

There will be additional posts coming again more regularly.