The Last Taste

If I’m eating hot dogs for dinner, well then it’s a no brainer; the last mouthful has hot dog and bun in it and that will be the last taste. 

If steak (which we hardly ever eat) is accompanied by beans from the garden, rice pilaf, salad, and bread, then there are a lot of choices for the last taste.  More often than not I choose the bread. 

Even if we have stew for dinner there is still at least some choice as to what the last taste will be.  Do I save a solitary chunk of meat for the last bite?  How about a potato? Some carrot maybe?  A piece of celery perhaps?  Some of everything is too much.  Two items maybe, but not all four.  I prefer to have just one or two things be the last taste and I like to choose. 

As much as I like chocolate and as much as I like dessert of almost any kind, sometimes I won’t eat dessert because I don’t want to change the last taste from dinner.  Sometimes even when I am craving dessert I won’t eat it because I want the memory of the last taste from dinner more than I want dessert. 

Call it one of my sundry idiosyncrasies, call it ridiculous, call it whatever you want; I choose the last taste when I eat. 

I like to choose the last taste when I am fishing too.  Ideally, just at the time I am ready to call it a day I catch a whopper of a fish.  The take is perfect, the hookset engenders an acrobatic leap (from the fish not from me) the fish runs deep into the backing, she is fat and beautiful when cradled in the net.  After posing for a few quick pictures she returns to the river to tell her friends to be careful of the Carp Carrot.  The whole thing is a perfect last taste.

Like eating dinner, ideally I would like to pick the last taste for every Carp trip and I would like to choose the last taste on the final session of the season.  A large, tailing fish turns to the side to pick up the fly.  I set the hook and he is ripping out line.  I release him and end the season with that perfect memory.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Or would it? 

 

In the middle of the summer when the sun is high in the sky, the wind has diminished, and the Carp are actively feeding in the flats, I think that I only want to fish for Carp the whole darn year.   It seems like such a good idea in July.  I can’t do it though.  Eventually cold weather, poor visibility, and vacant flats, keep me from it.  It is more than that though.  If I fished for Carp for the whole year the season would have no last taste.  I don’t just want there to be a last taste, I need there to be a last taste for the Carp season.  It truly is better that way.  Then I can savor the process of remembering past trips and daydreaming about future trips. 

Fishing isn’t really like eating; it’s more like life.  I can choose the last taste of dinner but so often I can’t choose the last tastes in life. I don’t get to choose the weather in life or in fishing.  I don’t get to choose the “when” or the “how” of every goodbye.     

When it is “goodbye for now” I choose the last thing I say.  What about when it is “goodbye for good”?  Sometimes I don’t know when “goodbye for good” is.  Or when it was.  That can be simply disappointing or it can be painfully life changing.  Not being able to choose all of the goodbyes makes the “hellos” better; the ones I choose and the serendipitous ones.

So much of the time fishing is more like life than it is like dinner; I don’t get to choose how things go. 

Fishing for two days this past September, I made my last Carp trip of the season.  I had decided in advance that no matter how good or bad the fishing was, this trip would be the last taste for 2012.  I like choosing and savoring the last taste.  It gives me the feeling that I am in control probably more often than I really am. 

The sun was low in the sky.  Even with no devil clouds to be seen, spotting Carp was much more difficult than it had been in July.  The sun bounced off the lake all day.  Clear, calm water necessitated small flies.  While few and far between, tailing fish were still present.  Lightly weighted, size 12 Carp Carrots made some Carp happy.  Happy that is, until I set the hook.   Thursday, the first day of fishing, was quite satisfying; it really made me savor the anticipation of the second helping on Friday. 

Making the first cast to a tailing fish on Friday I was already thinking about how the day would finish.  I wanted to catch a fish on the last cast; I wanted to choose the last taste.  Like a transition in a video I wanted the summer to fade to fall with a take on the last cast.  Out loud, I wanted to actually say, “Goodbye and thank you” to that last Carp.  I wanted my winter fly tying day dreams to include that fish. 

Catching a Carp on the last cast of the season is really only going to happen if I catch a fish and then choose to stop at that moment.  In a way it is like choosing to not have dessert; I want the memory of the last taste of dinner more than I want the chocolate cake. 

Nearing what would be the end of the day I made casts to a couple cruisers; they did not take the small Carrot.  I suppose they could have recognized it as a fake but I chose to assume they weren’t hungry.  I was actually heading back to my Carpwagon when another cruising fish came into view.  I stripped out line and made a single cast.  This Carp apparently was hungry since he moved right to the Carrot.  God bless him!

I wanted a take to be my last taste for the session and my last taste for the 2012 season.  After releasing the Carp I clipped the fly off and broke down the rod; I chose to end my season with that fish.  It was one of the smallest Carp I caught the whole summer; a small bite for the last taste.  I said, “thank you” and “goodbye” to the fish and took a video of it. 

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.  It has been pouring rain for days.  A main arterial near my home has been closed because it has flooding water over it.  I worked today.  I smiled today.  I listened to Christmas music and I listened to Artie Shaw.  On this shortest of days I savor that last taste of the 2012 Carp season; that last taste that I was so fortunate to get to choose. 

Help a Soldier

Through an email from J Stockard Fly Fishing I learned about a Christmas promotion they are doing called "Help a Soldier".  I opened the link, liked the idea, and did it immediately.  The promotion lasts until the end of this week.  If you buy $25 of fly tying materials for a soldier J Stockard will match that amount.  Pretty cool.

Carp Pro Magazine Fly Fishing Edition

The all fly fishing edition of Carp Pro magazine  just went live about 20 minutes ago.  Check it out.  Wow, there is some good stuff in there!  

Carp On The Fly Special Issue

(Click the picture to get a better view of the cover.)

Have you been bein' good?  I know most of you have been; not all of you but most of you.  Are you just not sure what to ask Santa to bring you on Christmas?  Got your eye on a new reel?  I do.  Maybe a rod?  wading boots, a pack, or a net perhaps?

Just when you thought you had hinted at everything you could possibly want here comes one more thing that is just totally cool!  The December issue of USCARPPRO magazine comes out on Saturday and it is devoted entirely to Carp on the Fly!  WooHoo!  Get this, you don't even have to ask Santa to bring you this.  Watch here for a link to the magazine and you can start celebrating Christmas this Saturday.  If you have been being good this magazine is just for you.  If you have been being bad, this magazine is just for you too.  Is that a cool yule or what?

Among many other topics you will get to read articles about Carp behavior, stalking the wily critters, late season tactics, fishing the two fly rig, and detecting the take. I can hardly wait!

My article is about detecting the take.  Along with my article I produced a video giving explanation and showing several different takes.

This magazine is a multi-media endeavor.  Editors, Dan Frasier and Tony Cartlidge, have been working for months to bring us all a top quality product.  Watch for the magazine; it is going to be impressive.

Jumping Like a Twelve Year Old

The week before Thanksgiving found me fishing for Trout for two days.  I wish I could explain why some of my trips turn out the way they do; the fact is, I can't.  

We live in a neighborhood called Brookside.  It's just a name; the only brook here is the one that runs down the street when it rains hard.  We love our home; it's beautiful actually.  We like our small yard and we like the neighbors who live in the homes that are all very close together.  

I left Brookside later than I thought I would.  I rarely set the alarm.  For decades I got up at 5:00 to go to school.  Katy still sets the alarm.  I usually wake up before her alarm goes off.   I don't exactly "sleep in" now.  It's more like I "lay in".  I'm awake; I just lay in bed for a little while because I can.  Sometimes I'm planning my day, sometimes day dreaming about who knows what, and sometimes I'm worrying or conjuring up unnecessary anger.  

I was planning to drive from Brookside directly to the water in central WA, fish for several hours and then stay at the Carp Lodge.  It is almost a 4 hour drive to the water I was planning to fish.  I had hoped to be fishing by 10:00.  I got a late start.  There was an accident so the traffic out of the city was horrible. And, ammm... there was one more thing that slowed me down about 25 minutes.  I was groggy so I stopped to take a nap.  (Caffeine makes me jittery.)  Good grief.  Well, that meant I started fishing promptly at 11:40.

Who knows--these details may be important--they may have effected my karma in some big way.    

I put 6 nice Trout in the net by 4:15.  It was cold and getting colder.  I hustled back to my truck, dressed down and headed to the Carp Lodge.  Six fish was enough to satisfy me.  I lost a few, had some strikes, and had several refusals on my small dry.  I would like to have caught more but I was very pleased as a couple of the fish were over 20 inches and none were smaller than 16.  It was nice.  I can explain in a pretty straightforward manner how my day went, why I got to the water later than I planned, what fly I was using, how I was presenting it, and how the fish responded.  So there you go.

Here is a fish from day one.  

  

Who the hell knows why the next day went the way it did.  I surely don't!  I fished the same water with the same fly.  I started at about 10:00.  I got a fish on the third cast.  Oh swell, that makes me think fishing will be easy today and I'm just gonna knock the crap out of 'em!  I have found before that is a dangerous assumption.  Was it the weather?  How could it be; I just had different clouds.  Was it the temperature?  How could it be; it was just as cold as the day before.  After an hour or so I had already put 6 fish in the net.  I had no idea what was different.  I stopped at about 11:45 to eat my Clif Bar.  From about 12:00 until 2:00 I put a fish in the net about every five minutes.  I had fish on three consecutive casts.  More than once I had fish on two consecutive casts. Precise counting got suspect at 16 or 17 fish.  Somewhere in the 20's I reached a point where I consciously stopped counting.  Counting was interrupting my enjoyment.   

While it was cold out, there was a small hatch coming off and there were occasional full rises (a rise where the fish's mouth breaks the surface of the water).  There were more partial rises but still not many.  (a disturbance of the surface of the water where the fish takes something subsurface but doesn't show his head).  It was by no means voracious feeding.  

I stopped counting the fish before 2:00 and I fished until just before 4:00.   I would say I felt like this    and I kind of did--but not really.  That's a little smug and I wasn't feeling smug.  I caught so many fish I felt like I was twelve years old.   Twelve years old, and just plain and simply jumping with a young boy's unbridled joy.  Seriously.  

See, like this, this is how I felt.   I know, I know, white men can't jump, especially when they are wearing chest waders and boots.  But white BOYS, can jump; they can jump really high, particularly when they are happy.  

I wanted to end the day with a fish.  The fishing had tapered off the last half hour.  It seemed very greedy of me to want still one more.  At about 3:45 a 22 inch fish took my small dry fly off the surface and ran into the backing on my 5 weight.  The coloration was beautiful.  I took his picture and let him swim away.  There was still daylight and I could have fished longer but I liked finishing with the best fish of the trip.  

I actually did jump when I got back to the truck.  Just once though.

I don't have the slightest idea why I caught so many fish; it is not likely to happen again any time soon.  I was at the same water I had been at the day before, fishing the same fly, with the same weight leader, in the same weather.  I was even wearing the same clothes.  (Including my underwear.)  (Yeah, so what.)  

After I had dressed down I pointed the truck at the water and just looked at it for about 10 minutes.  I savored the day.  The slow current, the sage brush, the dying cattails, the occasional rise, the low sun glistening on the water briefly at the end of the day as the clouds broke slightly, the spots on the fish, the red bands, the scarlet gill plates--all of it was wonderful.  And the takes, oh yes, the takes; they are the best.  I savored all of it.  

In the end I felt like this.  so incredibly grateful.  

Scratchin' the Itch

To say, "They are not Carp", well, it's true, but so what.  Really, so what.  Carp are my favorite fish; oh dear God, yes they are.  I still like fishing for other fish too.

I was itchin' to get out and fish. I was itchin' to catch some fish too.  Wow; I got to do both.

Some large trout were kind enough to take my fly today.  When they take a dry fly it is even more kind of them.

A Change of Perspective, or, Carp Lips

Are you thinking about trying Carp fishing?  Have you just started?  Do you think a Carp's mouth looks funny compared to a Bass or Trout?  Can't quite bring yourself to try it?  Sometimes it helps to just look at something a little differently.

Now see, isn't that a lot better?  Doesn't this picture just make you want to turn off your computer and go Carp fishing right now?  A little change of perspective can make such a difference.  

PS  Mr. P.'s Blog has a Facebook page now.  Click the "Find us on Facebook" button.  (As if you weren't already getting enough nonsense just reading my blog.)