Prelude to Grass Carp Glory

submarine spotting

My backyard pond has some big grass carp. These carp have my respect as I've yet to lay a finger on them. I danced with one brute for roughly 10 min before horsing out my fly, straightened another meager nymph hook, and missed two amazing takes on a grasshopper. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. I can hear those grass torpedos laughing from my bedroom window.

I also wonder what my neighbors think of me doing a panther crawl down to the weed wall only to catch loads of bluegill.

if all the gills were this size they wouldn't be so annoying

Terrestrials

Is it possible that I've over-hyped terrestrials?

I pondered this question as I hiked the long path down into the valley of a relatively unknown trout stream. With each step more and more grasshoppers fluttered and jumped out ahead of me. These were the really big hoppers, some two inches long.

I've always had a thing for fishing terrestrials, ever since the first time I caught a fish on a hopper. Like most of my flyfishing successes, my first fish on a hopper was mostly by accident. I was fishing the meadows section of the Bois Brule river in northern Wisconsin during August. Soon I would learn that there are much better sections of river farther upstream for summer fishing. The meadows is deep and narrow, lacking the riffles and runs more characteristic of other portions of the Brule and of most good trout streams. Yet the gentle currents made it easy to fish a dry fly or strip a steamer. On this particular day I was fishing an indicator-nymph rig and on my first drift along an alder choked corner a nice brown came up and hammered my indicator. I can still remember the silhouette of the fish as it moved slowly out of the deep water and pushed its nose above the surface, then pulled its head down and away with my neon green foam ball. At times like these you wonder why one would get any sense of accomplishment from catching a trout. I replaced my indicator and nymphs with a big yellow hopper and on the first cast that same brown rose in the same way, taking it in its mouth and moving down and away again. It was a nice heavy fish that put up a fantastic fight. I landed it and snapped a photo (see above).







Further along my walk down to the stream I started to assess whether my interest in fishing terrestrials was at all justified by past successes. Had I really done that well on hoppers, ants, crickets and the like? The first year that I moved south to the driftless area I caught a number of trout on a hopper on an Iowa stream as late as October (see below). I am proud to say that it did not require a fish first striking at my indicator.

The next summer I fished ants and crickets as early as June and I caught fish, albeit small ones. Later that fall and the following one I caught a number of bigger fish (12-16 inches) on hoppers in late September in Minnesota. On one of those trips my son, Sam, came along. Of course I don't remember not catching fish on terrestrials because if they aren't working, I typically fish something else. In fact, that realization is probably more telling than anything. When fish are taking terrestrials, I fish them and I love it. When they aren't, I'm not, and I don't spend too much time thinking about it. But when its good, it is really good. It is the type of fishing most of us yearn for in the summer months. Tie on something big that floats and start casting. Let your mind wander, have fun.



I was still debating how often terrestrials have been effective for me when I reached the stream and tied on a hopper. My first cast missed the mark and drifted into some slack water on the inside bend. My second cast fell right up against the bank and a decent sized trout came out from the undercut and smacked it. I wasn't at all ready to play a fish and it ran itself directly into a mat of water cress and the fly popped out. That would turn out to be the fish of the day. It was fitting.

The stream I was fishing was small and shallow. The last time I had been here was two years ago with my daughter, Halene. At that time, we were mostly hiking and scouting new water. That was August and we did manage a nice-sized brown on a hopper then too. Now I worked my way up through a pasture section taking several 10 inch trout on a hopper. As the sun dropped below the bluff to the west, the fish turned on. For about a half hour stretch the little trout were racing each other to reach my fly. I had one fish that was bigger come up and miss my fly on the first pass and then take it on the second pass through. I lost that fish.



Its ironic that I spent so much time reevaluating the effectiveness of terrestrials on my walk to the river, to then simply test them out for a couple of hours after that. The fishing was good. The river was small and so were the trout. There were a couple of nicer fish that I lost, but this was a typical small-trout river. On my walk out, I refined my thinking on terrestrials by recalling where and when I have had success fishing them. For the most part, it has been on small streams like this one, where the fish are 100% aware of everything going on around them. It has been in runs that are shallow enough to require only a small burst of energy from the fish to rise up and grab the fly. Perhaps this is why I've taken some nice fish on terrestrials in the late fall on some of these really small and shallow streams. As bigger fish start to move upriver into the shallower gravel runs, I think it is pretty easy to aggravate them with a big yellow hopper. The stream I visited on this particular night will be a perfect place to test that notion in a month or so.

Fly Fishing Iowa Carp

A Floridian found me on the web.

nice blog, i share your addiction and was hoping pick your brain a little or at least point me in the right direction. i live in fl and fish for snook and redfish most of the time so all i have is 8 and 9 weights with floating lines. i am going to be visiting family in north liberty in a couple weeks and i didn't know if i should pack some gear. are there any fly shops in the area? i ran a search but did not find much. any help would be appreciated. - Aaron.

My response was - bring your gear and lets catch some carp. We fished the reservoir for a couple hours this morning. Aaron caught one carp and I missed a few. We were mostly tossing to dirt clouds with very few strong tailers. Tough carpin when they're not digging around in the muck. Now I just need to get down to FL sometime so Aaron can put me on some snook and redfish.

Tailing Cats

"It's raining hard". This was my wife's proclamation last night ~ 2AMish. The proclamation woke me and all I could think was -- I bet the fish will be in the flats. This is one of the effects of having this addiction to fly fishing. It creeps into your mind at any moment. I can't look at a weather forecast without thinking of how it will affect my fishing, even if no fishing is planned. So I got out early thinking I would find tailing carp and found tailing cats.

Evening on the Black

This weekend we had some family up to visit. Uncle Johnny spent a couple of hours with me on the Black. It was great to have a fresh set of eyes on the water, especially the eyes of a warmwater angler. The river is currently up pretty high, so we floated into the backwater/side channel area. After only a few minutes we saw a few gar surface. John had a number of fish follow his fly all the way to the boat, only to turn away at the last minute. He hooked one and played it well through three leaps. After the last leap, it spit the fly. That was all she wrote. Frustrating as ever.


I've spent a lot of time on the Black by myself. Over the weekend it was great to share it with someone who appreciates warmwater fly fishing. It renewed my own appreciation for the river.


Tonight I went back into the backwater and did not see a single rise for the hour I was there. I worked my way over to the back-eddy off the main channel, saw one fish rise, casted to it, and caught it. Go figure.


At John's advice, I decked the Native 9.5 out in floats. It made for a nice fishing platform indeed.
Working the fly slooooowwww.
The fish of the night. I hooked him pretty good with a big bushy rope fly.


An evening well-spent.

Iowa River and Lake MacBride

image credit: google maps

Close to home. The Iowa River Reservoir/Coralville Lake and Lake MacBride. Enough warmwater fishing to scratch the itch. I've come to really appreciate my proximity to these fisheries. On the weekends I've been hitting the water when my son takes his afternoon nap. The temps have been upper 90s this week. Sweating it out in the summer heat reminds me of playing summer baseball, back in the day. I think I played some of my best ball when I was in full drip mode.

The walk from the road to Sugarbottom flat for some gold fish.

The finger on the left is a fair carpin' backwater. Image of Coralville Res. Image Credit Google Maps.

Finger on the right - sugarbottom flat on Coralville Res. Image Credit Google Maps.

Summer Fishing

Fishing my local warmwater lakes and rivers. 

carp on SJW. from Lake MacBride flats.

not a pike. from Wapsi River, on 6" streamer

Met up with James II and Ray for some Pike fishing. I managed a small pike and this cat.  James' blog -- http://cowboyflyfishing.blogspot.com/ . James has been getting into the Pike lately. Thanks for the tips James.

the Wapsi

Coralville Reservoir

I watched a group of carp slurping cottonwood seeds in this backwater. Took this guy from the group. Not on the surface -- although taking a carp on an imitation cottonwood seed would be pretty sweet.

eye contact is one tip to catching more carp

Direct Gar Print

I am married to a wonderfully talented artist. Last night she printed a gar that I caught on a rope fly. The method is called 'direct fish printing'.

From the river...
To the studio...
Ink
rub
pull

Muddin'

My local mud flats.

Still learning the ways of the carp. It can seem futile at times. 

The mud flats are nice and shallow. See the fin out there. 

Black Hills

We recently took a week-long trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota. It was awesome.
Most of you know that I'm somewhat obsessed with bison. I still consider Alan Knapp's work to be one of the main reason I got into ecology. I remember having to write a literature review paper for my ecology class as an undergrad. Somehow I came across Knapp et al's Bioscience paper. I was seriously floored and forever hooked on plant-herbivore interactions. Bison are the essence of renewable energy. Someday I'll own some land with a small herd. In Custer State Park, bison are common and most people don't think it is too impressive to see one or a dozen. I thought it was great. It is simply the most impressive mammal in North America.

I fished French Creek in Custer State Park. It was full of rainbows. On my way there at 4:30 am, I saw a mountain lion. I was in my car, it was in the ditch, it looked at me, walked around the car, and then ran off. It was awesome-from my car.
I never got what I would call a 'big' fish, but I had a blast.
More bison on the edge of the badlands. Doesn't this photo just emanate ecosystems ecology?

Evidence

I was recently asked to provide some evidence of my work around the house. Here you go, some scenes from around the Black River Compound....
I did a little branch trimming and dropped a couple of trees behind the house. I didn't feel real great about it, but it does allow me to see the gar roll from the deck. Now if I could just catch one, I suck...

The wood already under the shed should get me through the next two years. The wood piled up could get me through another two years. Seeing this reminds me of something I read the other day. "A lady asked me if heating with wood really saved that much money on my heating bill. I replied, I don't have a heating bill."
The retaining wall is leveling off an area where we will eventually have a fire pit.
The fence keeps the rug rats in.
Potatoes on the left, strawberries on the right. The strawberries did great this year. Next year this entire bed will be strawberries.
The garden is growing well. That is a newly constructed compost bin in the background.

Ok, that's it. I'll work on getting some fish pics up soon.

4th of July carp

Was a hot 4th of July in Iowa. I spent a couple hours this afternoon tramping a skinny warmwater stream. We've gone 7 days without rain so I decided to fish a local creek that is more dirt and sand than some of my other options. Was happy to find a couple hungry carp that would move for a Clouser swimming nyph. Feels like summer fishing when you're dripping with sweat and deet.

chopped head and blurred fish. shooting with a timer... almost the money shot

tactics for small stream warmwater fish

Swinging streamers for smallies. Dead drifting nymphs and buggers for quillback. On my local warmwater streams the same trout tactics I would apply to driftless area trout streams apply to warm water specs. On this outing I observed quillback taking insect larvae in the lower sections of riffles. Neat to see flashes of silver as the sucker would twist into position to grab a bite.With the water being very clear the smallies would spot me from long distances. The fish on this stream haven't been too easy to catch. Just enough of a challenge to make it interesting.

The silver of a quillback

good looking warmwater stream in Iowa