Day two

 

Let it be said that my buddy Wendy has some pretty serious carp skills. I have caught carp in 9 states (just whiffed on #10) and I flat out know that the big C carp are as tough as they come. Like everything, it is a matter of forage. Clams don't run, and these carp don't move. You are essentially faced with the task of placing a fly within 4-8 inches of a feeding carp and then determining the exact second that the fish feeds on your artificial rather than whatever the hell it was feeding on before you made the cast. It can be quite a challenge.

 

Wendy handles it with the ease of a veteran big C carper. He fishes this river about as well as a guy can. So on day two he did his thing. The first stop had some tough stuff...high cloud cover and tricky fish poking in and out of boulders and ledges, but we eased along and got the jump on a few. I stick a bunch of super shallow fish by luck of the draw. We took turns moving up a bank line and I had some good targets. The first stop was just ok, but the second stop was pay dirt.

Conditions did us no favors here either, and we walked right into the teeth of a 30 mph wind. It was brutal. I could barely see as my eyes watered from the wind, but the wind didn't seem to bother Wendy. Halfway down the flat he ignored a tailer, walked right by a prime target and promptly stuck that 20 lber pictured above. The fish blew up in the shallow water, shooting by me and trying to get off of the flat. We took some photos, caught a few more fish and then did something I NEVER do on the big C. We recycled the flat...we walked it again, and still stuck fish. Not something I expect to happen often on my home waters.

We killed the day...fished until there really was no way to keep fishing, but that is just what we do. Two days to go, and we were feeling pretty good. Turned out that the next two days were the best fishing of the entire trip.

 

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