Kirk Deeter of Fly Talk makes a few fly fishing predictions for the coming year. Most of them are reasonable enough and will probably come to fruition but it’s #3 that catches my attention.

Fly fishing will see successful competitions happen that will actually promote the sport. Only they won’t revolve around trout. (We tried, but it’s hard to find a fair and legitimate format; one-flies are for fun). And they won’t revolve around bass. (That market is already cornered, and the bass people don’t want us). It’s going to revolve around carp fishing with flies. Just you watch.

I admit that I like this idea. For years now the wife has been bugging me to get a second job and being a pro carp angler on “The Tour” sounds good to me.

What if?

I’m looking forward to not hearing the phrase, “poor man’s bonefish.” Ever. Again.

I’m looking forward to this not being seen as just a short-lived, hipster trend.

I’m looking forward to someone actually giving me a legitimate definition of ‘trash fish.’

I’m looking forward to not hearing highly-biased opinions from people who’ve never tried it.

I’m looking forward to this fish finally getting the respect it deserves, on par with some of the toughest, and most worthy, game fish around.

But if none of that happens, and only a few weirdos continue to bother chasing these cool beasts, well shit, that’s just fine too.

Git thee to eastern Idaho, lads and lassies. And leave your trout rod at home (everything else is flooded anyway…).

For more info, and to register: Carpfest 2011

If there’s a better carpin’ anthem, I’m not sure what it is:

After G_Smolt’s thoroughly tasteless post advocating bead bouncing with a bamboo stick, we felt it was time to get back on track, appeal to our literate readers and pull this place out of the gutter.

But then, well, we got distracted.

Capr fishing explained:

It’s become popular to call it “the poor man’s bonefish,” but that doesn’t really prepare you for standing knee-deep in a fetid brew of algae and dung, while listening to cow farts at disturbingly close range. No – I’m pretty sure that even if I was deaf, dumb and blind and someone was pouring a Kalik down my throat, I still wouldn’t mistake this place for Andros.

But then these details start quickly fading into the background as disturbance is noticed in the otherwise smooth shallow flats, and cruising fish start to be picked out in the tea-colored water, and the adrenals are throbbing all over again at the thought of channeling that inner egret; standing poised, motionless and studying…waiting for the right individual, delicately placing a temptation in its path, and waiting, waiting, waiting until the shadow of this beast practically darkens the fly before a little twitch gets its attention, and then, with another, it alters direction and you watch the inhale before stripping hard and everything erupts and you’re clearing your line as the first run hits the sound barrier. And while I still haven’t been able to fool myself into thinking I’m back in the Bahamas, I don’t really fucking care anymore, either.

“Eventually, all gutters merge into one canal, and something kind of resembling a river runs through it. The channel was cut by the Army Corps of Engineers and runs over riprap from the basement of time. On some of the riprap are timeless pieces of plastic and other detritus. Under the riprap are things best left alone.
I am haunted, and sometimes a little scared, by urban waters.”

the left foot of god

The calm before the storm that chased me off the flats after a short afternoon of quality capr fishing – high water, wide flats and feeding capr.

She won’t make the jump to light speed but the SloughVette is plenty fast.  Stealthy too.

This one’s pal saw the fly first but she jumped on it, leaving him in a puff of mud.

Come to Daddy.

Right in the kissa!

Put it on a Ritz

How to Catch Carp by Russell Tinsley, from the anthology Fishing Secrets of the Experts c. 1962

Canned carp is prepared buy cutting off the carp’s head, fins and tail and cutting the skinned meat into chunks.  One teaspoon of salt is added to a pint jar of water holding the fish chunks.  This is cooked under ten pounds of pressure for two hours.  The bones soften like tuna and salmon.

Zee camo-painted slough-vette, she is stealthy no?.

Nice and quiet around here, huh? The louts all went fishing and left me here with no smokes. Just got this email from Dr. T:

Take a Carp (alive if possible) scour him, and rub him clean with water and salt, but scale him not, then open him, and put him, with his bloud and his liver (which you must save when you open him)

into a small pot or kettle; then take sweet Marjoram, Time and Parsley, of each half a handful, a sprig of Rosemary, and another of Savoury, bind them into two or three small bundles, and put them to your Carp, with four or five whole Onyons,

twenty pickled Oysters, and three Anchovies.

Nice! So, say, 17 pickled oysters and 4 anchovies would what, ruin it?

Then pour upon your Carp as much Claret wine as will only cover him;

But none for you, because if you’re trying this, you’re already dangerously shitfaced.

and season your Claret well with salt, Cloves, and Mace, and the rinds of Oranges and Lemons, that done, cover your pot and set it on a quick-fire, till it be sufficiently boiled;

Centrifuge well…

then take out the Carp and lay it with the broth into the dish, and pour upon it a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter melted and beaten with half a dozen spoonfuls of the broth, the yolks of two or three eggs,

Goddam, T! What else? Raisins? Clamatto? Acetone bath?

and some of the herbs shred: garnish your dish with Lemons, and so serve it up, and much good do you. -Dr. T.

Right. Like I’m falling for that. I’m gettin pizza.

People around Washington D.C. are now paying money to let fish chew on them.

This is some sort of pedicure treatment, reportedly. Seems harmless enough now, but don’t they know what happens once these bloodthirsty little bastards get a taste for human flesh?

the slough buggy

The Slough Buggy was in dry dock last week for some hull maintenance and retrofitting. While most modifications are below decks the addition of the flying bridge can hardly escape notice. And for good reason; any seasoned flat water angler can tell you that every inch higher you can get your eyes above the water equates to yards of increased visual conical sphere radius of visibility (north of the equator that is, all bets are off down under). And yes, that beer cozy is secured with Velcro.

beta testing

After spending the afternoon reconnoitering the carp flats (under four feet of muddy water and unfishable) I drove further into the desert to one of my fav bass ponds. I put the buggy in at last light and made a few practice casts into the reeds with a new tie I’ve come up with, results were favorable.

slop

I like to fish the heavy cover so I turn the Buggy south and pull on the oars until I’m at the other end of the lake. It doesn’t look like much but there are channels and potholes interspersed throughout the islands of slop. I have to cover a lot of water, dropping my bug into patches of open water near and far. I switch from the slider to a popper and play with different retrieves.

another piglet

The old time, down home method to fishing bass bugs prescribes very little if any movement of the bug. The closest I can come to the old way is to slow down my retrieve to a strip – pause – strip, like a tired old frog resting for a second between kicks. That seems to works well enough and for the last of hour near-darkness I pull in a fish every few casts, give or take a couple casts. Its all good because even the smallest bass hit the fly aggressively.

Giving new meaning to “Extreme Brah!” Fly Fishing is The Baghdad Anglers Club and School of Flyshing. Set up at one of Saddam’s old palaces, the club was started as a way for soldiers to decompress and relax by fishing for stocked carp and asp in the artificial lakes. We’d like to see the Beav try and muscle his way over these anglers’ access. Something tells me it wouldn’t go well for him or his lawyers.

(Check out the elbows)

(Danger Jimmy Prozac!, Danger! These chicks pack heat)

As the blog’s author is no longer over in the sandbox, there are no more updates to this site. If the club he started is still going strong, drop me a line at salty@busterwantstofish.com and I’ll see if I can get some gear sent their way. 

badasss capr! photos by Carmelo Gaeta

With Nature Trumps: An LA River Blog Jay Babcock demonstrates that good fishing is where you’re at and also that water brings wilderness and renewal to the most unlikely places.

Even so, I’d like to see these capr roll up in here with that attitude. They might learn themselves some r-e-s-p-e-c-k from the Columbia River tiger carp ’round these parts.

Been cold ’round these parts lately. The rivers is too low, water’s too clear. The steelheads won’t truck with low and clear water. Blue sky too, that don’t help t’all.

I didn’t want to have to do it, but likes I told the wife, “There’s no choice, I have to go carpin’.”

Angling for thee winter carp is a gamble on the account of all the ducks that that have to be rowed up; sun, water, ice and wind have to be proportioned just right.

I string up my fly rod and tie on an orange crawfish, #6. Then I pulls my waders up over two pairs of long skivvies and one pair wool pants ‘cuz I know that the waters gonna be cold. There’s snow on the ground, just enough to cover the rocks and sagebrush. All that whiteness makes it real bright so I don my polarized glacier glasses. Air’s cold too so I pulls up my balaclava.

The shallowest parts of the flats is frozen over solid but walking around on the ice is easier than wading through boot deep mud. I makes my way out to The Reef. It aint any kind of reef t’all, just a sunken island that has anywheres from one to three feet of water over it.

An ice cap hovers over yonder island like a lenticular over a mountain top. Conditions are about perfect: cold enough to freeze but plenty of sunshine to warm up the carps and the crawfish.

With the sun high enough over this desert reservoir the crawfish crawl along the top of the submerged island towards the sunlight at the edge of the ice cap. For awhile they warm themselves in safety even though they are fully exposed to the yellow light of the winter sun.

The first sortie of large, slow moving fish, glides along the ice shadow like so many dirigibles over a beach head and the crawfish are caught unawares. A half dozen of their number are lost to the hungry maws of three stealthy carp. The rest of the tiny crustaceans scuttle back to the safety of shade and ice.

But the warmth of the sun is too much to resist and them crawfish have short memories anyhow so, en masse, they crawl back toward the sunlight.

The carp, who are known to have better memories and superb hearing detect the clicking and scraping sounds their prey makes as it migrates across the rocks and clam shells to warmer water. In two’s and three’s more carp fin their way to what has become a buffet at the edge of shadow and light.

I considers myself a friend of all animals but the phenomenon that takes place before me holds a slight unfairness to the ‘dads so I enter the melee on their behalf. To be fair and accurate I should report that it is my fly, the orange #6 crawfish pattern, that enters the melee but it is me that launches it into battle.

The results of my fly’s forays into the abyss are predicable and entertaining.  Not so much fun for the piggish koi who resent having to pull against my rod in such cold, but lots of fun for me and I can’t help but think that the shy little crawdads appreciate the slight reprieve from predation.