Bass, bluegills and trout

The old trout rod has been getting a bit of a workout, with trips out to hook into some bass and trout. With the bluegills sitting on their nests the bass are getting up close to the shore and easy to spot. Even though I am really no expert at catching bass on the fly my wife and I have had some success. So far our best bass have been a 17" and a 14". The 14" was the first bass my wife got to the net but it was about the 5th bass of that size that she has hooked and lost before getting to close enough to net.

As well as getting into the bass we have been exploring south boulder creek in walker ranch and this weekend we had a lot of good water to ourselves. We ended up getting a reasonable number of decent sized brown trout to the net. The day did end with us watching a thunder storm roll in and a mad dash to get off the river and out of our waders. The storm held off for a few minutes to allow us to start the one mile climb up the hill before the rain came and then some pretty big lightening strikes before we made it to the car. I feel pretty sorry for the people that we passed on the way out, as our car was the only one in the car park so they would have had at least a 4 mile walk to the next car park.

Carp on the Berry

Looks like I have been neglecting to post how life is in Colorado, to say the least it is hot and full of smoke, but that has not stopped me from getting out and fishing.

I have been trying for ages to get a Carp on the fly rod and over the last two weekends it has finally happened; TWICE. The first time I did not have a camera so it was a bit hard to say it happened. However, on with the story. I had been fishing at a lake pretty close to my apartment all summer and noticed a mulberry tree near the waters edge, and two weeks ago I noticed that the lower branches were loaded with berries and it kept bobbing up and down. It was not due to a bird, but there were 3 carp under the branch picking berries. So I got out the biggest blackest fly I had and gentling placed it under the tree. After about 5 tries one carp looked skyward and looked at it before moving back to the real deal. By now my fly was more of a sinker instead of a floater and this turned the table. As I watched my line float under the tree it took a right angle turn and it was CARP ON!!!!. I have heard carp could either be fighters or duds, this guy was in the fighting category. He took me in and out several times, but never to the backing. The old 6/7 weight rod was like an old man at his fly tying desk tying size 26 midges, all bent over with not an inch of flex left in him. Finally after 20 mins he beached himself and I was able to let old golden go. First carp and it was a good 4 pound fish.

The next time I went out I was loaded with double mulberry rigs, one floater and one sinker. Under the same tree were the hungry carp, but this time a bird in the tree was knocking berries down to them. After losing one whole rig to the tree god and then the bottom fly to another tree I was able to convince a crap that foam did taste like a mulberry. Once hooked it was another good 15-20 min fight and another 4 pound carp in the bag. This time I was lucky enough to have my dad filming the whole thing and also finally a photo of a carp in hand.

Next time I am going to hold out for the 5 pound plus sized carp.