Time has slipped past since my February 28th ice fishing blog with Granny holding a frozen largemouth bass. After that fun day it was back to work. I spoke at the Hawkeye Flyfishers Annual show in Cedar Rapids, IA last weekend. Then this week I prepared for upcoming speaking gigs and packed for some approaching fishing trips. Our only real adventure was a run up to an ice covered Lake Superior to have lunch with college pals, Howie and Kittaka in Bayfield.
Yesterday, Granny and I flew to Phoenix, Arizona and we are staying with our good friends Steve and Lisa Berry for the week. I’ll be delivering my new “Chasing Species” talk to Arizona Flycasters Club on Tuesday night and the same show to Desert Fly Casters Club on Wednesday night. But being in the heat of Phoenix means some fishing also.
I’m crazy about the urban angling around Phoenix, AZ. The canals, manmade lakes and ponds, and even the Salt River have fish. The target I enjoy fly fishing for most are the carps, consisting of the common carp, mirror carp and grass (white Amur of “grassies”) carps. But there’s a heap of other warmwater fish to catch also.
Today, Steve, Granny and I headed to one of our old favorite canals. It’s produced a lot of midsized grassies for us over the years and one monster common carp. Both fish require different tactics. We catch the grassies on top with big green hoppers or Chernobyl’s and the commons eat off the bottom. Granny prefers the dry fly so I handed her my 5-weight Winston Air 2 and she headed off. She had a lot of finicky grassies around but the water was ultra clear and very shallow. The fish were spooking before she got her hopper on the water.
Steve and I attempted to pick off fish behind Granny. With most of them zipping around wildly, already spooked, we had little chance. Both of us switched gears. Steve worked over some tilapia with nymphs but to no avail. I made numerous casts with a variety of different flies at a pod of common carp but no luck for me either. Not only were the fish spooking like crazy under the conditions, but it seems like they’ve seen a fly or two lately.
Our forecast for today was for surprisingly cool around 74° and for clouds to arrive midafternoon followed by thunderstorms in the evening. Carp fishing is 100% sight fishing so we felt some urgency to get on to some cooperative fish. Steve suggested we have a look at another canal and a lake. As we walked the canal back to Steve’s truck, I took the grassie rod and dropped the hopper on every fish I saw. Even ones that were spooked. I got some looks right off the bat which put me on high alert. Sure enough, when you cast at about 20 different fish, you’re likely to find one dummy. I did.
It’s been a year since I hooked up with one of my favorite fish so when this fish ate my fly and I went tight was more than invigorating. An intense battle followed the hook up. In the end I got the Amur to Steve, who had climbed down a ladder to reach the water. Steve slid the net under and it was my first grass carp of the trip.
This is an average grassie, but a very good one for this canal and a lucky one for such difficult conditions. Granny popped a couple pics of Steve and I. Then I slid the unusual looking fish back with his friends.
It was lunch time but Steve had a pin for another canal where a friend suggested there were easy to catch grass carp. Sure enough they were there. A huge pod of about 30 little guys were wandering in slightly murky water. Granny spooked the first pod but managed to nail one out of the next pod she saw. We didn’t have the net and when Granny was fumbling the fish for a photo, she dropped him and he snapped our leader and took off with the fly. I put another hopper on and caught another. That was enough. These grassies were tiny.
We rewarded ourselves with some killer food from The Chuck Box in Tempe. While Steve and Granny crushed “Big Burgers” I enjoyed a spicy chicken and a beer. Then we were off again.
There’s a neat little lake behind an insurance company we fished on last year and caught some Rio Grande cichlids. We went there and hoped for a few more but my first plan was to be rigged for common carp. I remembered a creek entering that had about five good ones by its mouth last year. They were there again today. I spotted them from the parking lot as we left the car. Granny kept watch up high while I snuck down. On my second cast I connected and my next rodeo of the day began.
There’s nothing like a decent sized common carp hooked up in an area with sunken trees, thick weeds, reeds and likely a tire or two. I was using 0X fluoro and even with that stout tippet things didn’t look good a few times. But I held on and dodged a few bullets and finally got the fish to Steves net.
After two excellent fish for the day, I kicked back and watched Granny and Steve fish. Steve plucked this very nice largemouth out on a nymph while casting at a cichlid.
Over the next couple hours we caught a heap of bluegill, some small bass and had our chances with the cichlids and more carp. I hooked two more commons and Steve stuck one also. But they were big and all three managed to either snap off or free the fly. It’s just a tough place to land a big fish.
It’s been a great first day. We wrapped it up around 5 PM and got back to Steves in a nick of time. Though Phoenix hardly ever gets rain, the forecasted thunderstorms came during the early evening. We had a deluge of rain for about 30 minutes. Its cool now but the storm has passed and Steves got a pork loin on the grill. More fishing tomorrow!
All sounds cool!