My season is over

I was fortunate enough to fish with Brian from The Haddis Catch today, and frankly, we agonized over where to go and what to chase. The plethora of options available to an angler in OR in the fall is a little overwhelming. The trout fishing is great, steelhead abound, salmon swim in the rivers, and sea run cuts can be caught near the coast. With all of those options in prime condition...we chose a 50/50 shot at carp instead. It was about what I expected (but not what I talked myself into thinking it would be). We saw some fish, but not in the numbers nor in the locations I usually find the fish. The biggest issue was the weather. Fall is here in OR, and with it comes clouds, and some rain. We fished the bulk of the day with no sun, and a good chunk of the day with dark, ominous clouds. And yes, we got rained on...but we still found some fish.


This bad boy was the first fish we landed but not the first we hooked. She tipped the scales at just over 20 lbs...a great way to end the season! We hooked a total of 7 fish, and landed two. I lost three fish to the weed beds, one to an extremely dull hook, and landed one other fish in the 9-11 lb range. Brian had one solid hookup, but he set the hook one way just as the carp (15 lb range) sprinted the other way...I heard the line snap from thirty feet away.

Despite tough visibility and a rough time actually landing fish, it was a rewarding day. I enjoyed fishing with Brian and we had enough "holy shit did you see that" moments to carry us through. I have to say this too...we saw some absolute monster carp. Brian had the misfortune of snagging a rock as a real bruiser (25-30 lb range) turned to follow his fly. Another three seconds without hooking that rock and Brian would have had something that could pull back.

We closed the day (and my season) fishing in a downpour. A mist came through, the rain fell hard and we squinted into the deluge looking for carp. A fitting way to close things down. How many months until spring?



Check out the size of that tail. Carp are awesome.