Just Add Water

Last Sunday I thought for sure I would have a good week of fishing with the recent rains.  I went out the following evening and apparently someone closed off the dams upstream.  The same areas I was catching fish in 24 hours earlier were now dry.  I was not happy.

Fast forward to Thursday (7/16) and my area got an inch of rain in the morning.  I went out after work and with the rise in water levels came a bunch of hungry carp.  The first stop had about a dozen fish in a hole no more than 20 feet in diameter.  Most were nose down in some tree roots so I just waited for one to get clear.  It didn’t take long and another fish swam in. I dropped my fly in front of him and the splashing commenced.  Unfortunately the hook came loose about a minute later and he was gone.  After that I bounced back and forth between 4 different spots within 100 yards of each other.  I managed to land 5 and lose another in about an hour and a half.  After I would catch one I would move on to another spot to give the previous spot a chance to calm down.  The strategy paid off well.  I also started slowing down my hook sets.  I was getting to crazy doing the Orvis hook set and whenever I missed, I would send the fly into the trees above me.  Now, when I see a take, I just lift up slowly until I feel the weight.  Once the fish takes off I clamp down and bury that hook.  It has made a big difference in my hook up percentage.

Once it started getting dark I headed for home.  I was having a hard enough time trying to see the fish through my continuously fogged up sunglasses anyways.  I’ll be back Saturday morning, unless of course the dams upstream get closed off again.