Friday, January 07, 2011

Spring carp

A big girl from the past. Spring carping has it's rewards. The fish are harder to see and don't run as much in the cooler water, but it you catch a few rays of sun and the river opens up in front of you sometimes it shows you a few monsters.




It is going to be a long wait.

Rumor has it a legendary carper from CO is making his way to my home waters this season for some time on the big C. Check out McTage's blog at http://flycarpin.blogspot.com/. Truthfully, those south platte boys know their stuff and I hope I don't embarrass myself. I am pretty impressed with the cadre of carpers in CO and anxious to see how their methods differ from mine, and how some of their bad ass patterns play on the big C. Bring some of those Primordial Carp Crust flies McTage!

Should be a great visit, just glad I will have the home court advantage.



Just looked back at that first pic. Good god that thing is a hog.

7 comments:

testflycarpin said...

Legend in his own mind maybe...Thanks for the plug John :)

I can't wait experience such a different, beautifull and productive fishery. That first picture will keep me up nights.

Unknown said...

Yeah, and I think the last time the Roughfisher rolled into CO with the veritable MG, times were good.

John Montana said...

The CO boys have got it going on...I need to get down there some day. It would be sweet to fish with mg sometime Alex.

That big bitch in the first pic was from 2009. Scaled at over 24lbs. Biggest I caught in 2010 was 25 but I screwed the pooch on bigger fish last season. Things have to go pretty smoothly to land those real brutes out here.

Anonymous said...

actually Alex, the times were tough on the DSP when I was there. We only managed one fish and it was that mirror I got with 20 minutes left on the clock. Those CO definitely have some skills, but after having fished both locales, the primo carp water is definitely the mighty Columbia. Can't wait to get back and fish it again....

John Montana said...

Way to lay the pressure on me JP! Hah!

Personally, I think we all need t descend on grand traverse bay one summer.

testflycarpin said...

No doubt about it ... Not even the super-studs who have been doing it for decades can put up on the DSP anything like Montanna does on the Columbia.

Johns got the right idea, MI is where it's at, although I never got to try Grand Traverse.

John Montana said...

How big do those CO carp really get? Hard to tell from pics but there sure seem to be some big ones around.

The avg Columbia fish varies depending on where on the river you fish...it is a big river. Some areas hold an avg fish of 7-9 lbs, others more like 9-11. The biggest i have landed out there is 31 lbs, but I have seen and had shots at fish that would go much bigger. I am convinced there are 40 plus lb fish in the Columbia. Every season I seem to find bigger and bigger fish, starting to figure out what the big ones are really looking for in terms of habitat.