sping break

It has been a few weeks and I remembered that I had started a blog.  No readers so its just kind of something to do while "I drink and think" at the end of hte day.  The past few weeks have had me thinking about fishing for other species more often.  I like fishing for everything that swims.  I realized that I have never caught a carp in my life though.  I see them all the time while fishing for bass and pan fish, however I have never actually fished for them.  Needless to say I have spent a lot of time on the internet recently.  The past three days have been a carp hunt.  I knew that I was a little early for the species but decided to give it a go.  I have been to 5 different ponds/lakes in three days and have still not hooked my first carp.  Today I went to a pond that I know holds carp, I woluld see them when I would fish before work in the summers or on a lunch break.  I didn't see one carp, I did get board enough to do some extream dry fly rainbow stocker fishing and yes somehow enjoyed it.  I met a dude fishing salmon eggs for the trout and asked him if he had ever seen carp...he said no.  I guess you only see what you want or would want to eat.  I agree that there are some species that you would only eat in a survival situation and carp may be on that list.  I remember eating a northern pike in canada on survival training (3 days, 3 matches, a hatchet, 1 orange, and one potato yeah I know real random list but love those matches) but hey I was hungry and had a fish.  It wasn't all that bad to tell you the truth.  Back to the fishing, I decided to move to another place that might be warmer and along the way stopped in to ask a real carp pro some advice.  I always feel a bit shallow when I ask for knowledge and I also wounder if it should be learned and not taken from another.  I will always wounder how the pro feels when confronted with the amateur searching for advice.  Is the attitude: here we go again, why don't you hire me as a guide and pay me, ask me more so I can share my knowledge, please go away now?  I may never know the answer to that one.  I fished where I had planned to during the afternoon and didn't get a fish on the first res, but did get some smaller bass and pan fish from the second.  I passed some guys who said the only fish they had taken was a carp.  I asked on what and they told me a night crawler about 30yards out.  I don't know anything about the depth of the res so I can only imagine that it is a very flat and shallow area on the east side.  In the smaller pond/lake I saw my first two carp chilling together in the shallows.  I poked my head and rod through the winter trees and attempted to bow-and-arrow a fly, they saw me...fuck!  I had no real shot at them and they weren't feeding to my understanding so no worries.  Today I questioned my excitement with going after carp, then realized what is there to question. The carp chase may take over my life, I hope my lady Trista will understand.

the big O

I wrote in my fishing journal today and then thought about the blog that I started.  The past few weeks have been fun and mid terms took the remainder of my time.  I fished the Colorado, SBC, BC twice, and the Williams fork twice.  Today I fished the Cheese and was humbled with the big O.  Today was one of those days when nothing worked.  The patterns were not the problem, what wasn't working was me.  My girlfriend is at a conference for the week and I have no commitments  for 7 days, beginning today.  The day started early with her departure and since I was awake I decided to make the drive to Cheesman.  I have only fished Cheesman and Deckers a handful of times but admire the area.  I arrived early, like 8am, so not summer early.  I hiked until it felt right and spooked the first ten fish I saw.  WTF?  The feeling was there and the bugs were there.  I however had no rhythm.  I just purchased my first rod that I don't need and figured I would fish it.  Its a 4wt but decided I would line it wiht a 5 becasue I don't own a 4 with a drag at the moment and its fast.  Needles to say not the best option but it  worked well under the conditions.  I just couldn't get the fish to bite or move for that matter.  I even went to the extent to bounce more than one fly off of a fish's nose.  Yeah 3 times that I can remember...I watched it hit the fish in the face.  At least at the Taylor they move out of the way.  No idea about that one, maybe I should throw eggs like the rest of the anglers today.  I noticed that a lot of anglers that I walked by had an egg on, and were blind fishing the canyon.  So even though nothing came together for me I managed a few hooks but no nets.  I sit here tonight hoping this isn't a foreshadowing of events to come during the Taylor trip next week.