Dr. Cane

The good Dr. took to carping in about...ten minutes.







I think that is how long we walked the flats before he got his first really good look at a carp. It went something like this:

Me: thirty feet up, tailing, head facing us and 45 degrees toward shore. Put the fly about six inches in front and 4 inches to the side.

Dr. Cane: where is he?

Me: right there (pointing rod).

Dr. Cane: got him (makes cast and the fly lands 6 inches in front and 4 inches to the side of the tailing fish.)

Me: wait for him...wait...set!

Bingo. Done deal and the carp came to hand moments later. The bottom line is that Dr. Cane can flat out cast. He absolutely peppered carp with accurate casts. It was a sight to watch. Granted, it took him a while to decipher the takes but that masked man can put the fly where he wants it.







Very enjoyable to fish with the guy, but he made me feel bad with my broomstick casting and clumsy line skills. Dr. Cane is pure poetry with a flyrod. We had an amazing time and got into plenty of fish. I am pretty sure we have a convert now. Chris was a great sport, even willing to literally swim the river with me to get to one area I wanted to check out. Superb caster, willing swimmer...and he brought me some sweet hooks. Nice.






The only bummer was the lack of truly huge fish. I landed two over 18 and Dr. Cane got a 15 but the 20s eluded us. Chris put a hook in one (stupid weeds) and I beached one only to have the fly pop put and not be quick enough to pounce on it before it bolted from the shallows. Still, some great fishing.





We both caught some mirrors, and the takes were fantastic. Dr. Cane had one in particular that was awesome. He had a fish all lit up and poking around for his fly, but we kept missing the take. On the third cast the fly fell perfectly, just slightly to the side and the fish turned, opened it's mouth wide and sucked it in. Fish on. Awesome.





Truly a great time. I am looking forward to more trips with Dr. Cane.

And people say they are ugly.

Quite a few trip a in the books for July, and I will get some pictures of some fish up soon. We got into some nice fish this month, and while none were absolute monsters, we caught more than our fair share of mirrors. Elia and I hadn't walked ten feet of this flat before the green fly struck again.

She duked it out with this one for a while but a columbia carp in July is pretty hot and she needed a hand getting it to the net. She is a trooper though and she loves carp!

Looking for a worm.

This little guy turned 4 today. Crazy.

Truth be told,many fish have been caught the past few weeks. I spent roughly three days fishing with my dad over two weekends, and snuck out of the office Friday for a stellar day with the legendary Dr. Cane. My memory card is full, I just haven't had time to download properly yet. Instead I have been dealing with the perfectly awesome dilemma of not having the time to tie the flies needed for the outings presented. Suffice it to say that the fishing has been good.

More to come.

Oh...and this guy:





35 ft away staring into a glare...they look just like carp. And they eat the green fly too.

I just put up a couple of quickie posts about what we've been doing the past few weeks. I made a couple of carp runs somewhere in there too, but the water was high and ugly and catching was minimal at best. I got out today with my dad and had much better results. By the end of the day the water was well on its way up to "high and muddy" again, but the mid afternoon provided some fantastic sight fishing. This little mirror charged forward 3 ft to eat the green fly before it even came close to hitting the bottom.


My big fish of the day, a 20 lber that made 3 attempts to eat a sinking worm, finally getting it right on the third try. I saw that all unfold and could literally see the red of the worm swirling around as the fish frantically chased it and sent it spinning away a couple of times in the mad rush. Awesome.


For the record, I caught more fish than my dad (by 3x!) but he got me in the big fish department. This beauty scaled out at 22 lbs...his biggest fly caught fish ever. What a beast!


We closed the day stalking down a shallow finger of water that was just loaded with small, aggressive carp. They just pounced on the green fly if you got it anywhere near the fish. Near the end of the finger the fish were buried in the grass tailing. My dad dapped one with about 10 inches of tippet hanging out the tip of his rod. After that, I clipped off my flies. No way were we going to top that take. By the way, he is still a stealthy bastard...look how close he got to this tailer! Not bad for an old man.

The Oregon Coast is the kind of place where getting skunked doesn't matter:



But I actually caught two of these. Surf fishing is tough.

My kids are pros: