Just a great day on the water with KB. In preparation for Justin's arrival next week, I needed to scout out my favorite carp lake. KB was gracious enough to keep me company! Arriving at the lake I was immediately disappointed. The water level is way to high for my taste, and while the fish were definitely up on the flats, the flats were 4-7 ft deep! We waded out there and gave it our best shot regardless, and the results were excellent! I hooked 8 fish, landing five including this beautiful mirror, and a beast of a fish that you can see me fighting in a great picture taken by KB. This fish made an initial run that left me with 2 or 3 wraps of flyline on the reel. I got him back in to me only to have him run about 50-60 feet into my backing on his second attempt at escape. He wasn't done yet, and after getting a look at my feet blasted out a third run, this one about 30 feet into my backing. It was a monster carp...pics to follow, just waiting on another email from KB.

KB fished hard along with me all afternoon, and had a couple of takes, but only brought one fish to hand. It was his first time at this water, and it can be a tricky place to detect a strike, especially when the fish are little more than shadows on the bottom, 6 feet down! Still, something tells me he'll be back!

Looking forward to Justin's visit, and we may hit this spot despite the hot water. Out of the 7 fish that I had on (the 8th was on for about 2 seconds) 4 fish went into my backing. My arm is tired!