grassies on grass hoppers

I found a pod of grassies on the windward side of the city pond. A few of them were clooping surface scum. It was time to hook a grassie on a hopper. After a few half hearted cloops on the hopper I had a cruiser take a nice gulp, zing! I haven't caught enough grassies to say the code is cracked but I may be on the curve. Ever since I read Jeff Currier's "Grass Carp Code Cracked Forever" post I've been anxious to take a grassie on a hopper. While you're over at Jeff's blog be sure to read about his recent India trip fishing for mahseer.

Grass Carp

I hooked up with one of the backyard grass carp! These guys are tough to catch. I employed a handful of tactics and flies. I smacked them in the head with green hoppers, led them with green hoppers, tandem nymphs, worm flies, the hybrid, slow stripped bugs, and finally the answer was a classic clouser swimming nymph (CSN). I asked myself after catching this fish, shouldn't this be one of the first flies I throw at this fish? For a fish that is sitting or cruising about a foot under the water surface the CSN is a logical choice. The CSN has a slow sink rate allowing it to hover in the zone for a long time. This sets up nicely for leading a slow cruiser. With that, I'm gonna tie a few more CSN's and with any luck I'll harass a few more of these big fish.

The fight was great. This big fish jumped out of the water twice. Seeing grassies go airborn is quite spectacular. I hooked a couple last year that also went airborn but popped. This time I won. Man vs Grass Carp.

Whiskers

Mr. Whiskers lives in my backyard pond. I caught him last May and we had our 2nd date this week. I was tossing size 12 pheasant tail nymphs for the resident grass carp and hooked up with this old friend. It's nice to feel a strong fish again. Prior to hooking the cat I had a grass carp hooked and peeling line on my 5wt. The grassie bolted to the opposite side of the pond before the hook popped. While both fish are strong, the grass carp has speed and strength. The catfish lacks speed but makes up for it with brute strength. 

Driftless

Nate and I started the weekend fishing in the rain. Any further west and we would have been fishing in the snow. I think rain turns fish on. Perhaps it triggers them to eat before the water turns dark and turbid and eating becomes difficult. The front end of the rain produced some steller fishing. Sure enough, the next day many streams looked like Wonka's chocolate river. So we fished streams that run clear regardless of how many inches of rain fall. It's good to know your Driftless options.