Meat eater

 

Wendy Berrell and I had been riding a pretty good high. We smacked Lake MI around and were laying into the carp left, right, back and forth. Our bay of choice was literally frothing with fish...targets everywhere...and some were hungry. This fish was highly memorable. For the most part, we had been spotting fish and casting to specific cruisers in relatively shallow water. The depth, and color of the bottom made visibility perfect, and when we found a player, the cat and mouse game of stripping and killing the flies was intoxicating. As the bay narrowed a bit, I slipped to the deeper edge...still only waist deep but gone were the perfectly clean visuals of the knee deep water, replaced instead by groups of moving black masses...carp, milling free from the spawning frenzy to circle out and then back into the scrum. I couldn't clearly see individual fish, nor mouth nor fins or scales,but I could see hordes and groups moving through the deeper channel. On the big C...this is a zero sum game...but on lake MI...they eat meat.

 

I threw the rabbit monstrosity above well ahead of one group, giving time for the heavy dumbell eyes to pull the fly to the bottom. When the marauders were a few feet away I hopped that fly right across their path...skittering, moving, jumping and stopping every few inches. I could see in my mind as the rabbit pulsed and the fly jigged with each strip and rod shake. Out of the middle of said pack of predators, one big dark shape broke a 90 and began to follow. Strip, strip, pause...strip, pause...strip, strip, BIG strip and then kill the poor fly and leave it helpless on the bottom as the darkness surged forward, unable to resist. The rest was a matter of one final strip, good tippet and a strong drag.

God bless the meat eaters.

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