8/09/2011 "Taking Out the Trash..Tuesday Carpin"

"Don't forget that today's trash day...." , my wife said as she made her way downstairs to head out the door for work. I lazily rolled over in bed and acknowledged her with a sigh , still oblivious to the day and anything related to it. As I lay there, slowly coming to life, I began to think about my wifes last words to me...trash day ,hmmm... I think she may be on to something. With her words still reverburating through my head I crawled out of bed , threw on some clothes and grabbed the flyrod and a box of carp flies. A couple pieces of toast and a cup of coffee and I was headed to the lake to get this "Trash Day" started.

I'd be running solo as I'd heard that my local mudhole was having a blue/green algae problem , I don't know much about it but I'd heard it could be potentially dangerous to dogs that drink the water and I wasn't taking any chances so the fishhound had to stay home.
I sure couldn't see any algae issues on the upper end of the lake where I was fishing , the water was clear and a good 10 degrees cooler than it had been just a week prior during the prolonged heat spell. I knew right off it was gonna be a good day , I could see several drum tailing in the shallow flats as I approached the water. The blue/green algae warnings had obviously deterred a few boaters if nothing else, as the lake was almost totally empty to my great satisfaction.


Tailing fish...calm , clear waters and not another fisherman in sight , I gotta admit I'm really starting to love this shit. Today the fish were just "eating" , plain and simple. If you didn't spook em and made a halfway decent cast they were on your fly with a fury , several patterns caught fish but an olive with fire/tiger legs was tops.


I ended up landing three carp , one of them being my largest so far on a fly , still not a huge fish by most standards, but probably pushing 30 inches and big around as a football. Like a dumbass I went to one hand him and lift him up for a photo op and he flopped out of my grasp and came unhooked, so no shots of the big fish. Note to self : next time use both hands!! I was a little dissapointed, but only for a few casts until the reel was screaming again.

The drum were just on fire today , not sure if the cooler water temps got em on the feed or what's up but they were just pouncing on anything you got within their range of vision.


I actually lost count at seven on the drum but I'm sure I landed at least a dozen before calling it a day. They're not much to look at and still don't get any mainstream attention like their trashy brothers the carp and gar but damn they'll sure eat a fly and then proceed to show you that backing you don't normally get to see.


It seemed the cooler water temps had all species of fish a little more active ,in between the carp and drum I had a hard time keeping the sunfish off my flies and even managed one largemouth from the shallow flats.


Days like this where it seems you can do no wrong and the fish come relatively easy are few and far between for me and I took advantage of the situation and blew off my chores in order to make the most of it. Last year if you'd have asked me to choose between a day on my favorite trout stream or a day sight fishing the flats for carp, the answer would have come without any thought...today I'd have to seriously consider option B , taking out the trash!