Steve Berry and I got a nice early start on our fly fishing today down here in Phoenix, Arizona. We fought the traffic to a fun set of urban lakes that we’ve made a tradition of fishing together for years. This location probably goes back almost two decades when we met when I used to speak at the big Sportsmen’s Shows in Phoenix.
In a couple of these particular lakes, the koi population is higher than anywhere else I’ve ever seen. Back in the day, Steve and I and other friends would come here and rack up ten koi a piece, all different colors from orange, to white to calico. But those days are long gone. These lakes got popular and many skilled fly anglers walk the shores. These days all the fish in the ponds, koi, carp and bass, have an extremely High IQ. They are far from easy to fool anymore. It also seems like the fish numbers have gone down as well.
But tough fishing is what makes you a better angler and after years of facing these cunning fish, we got ourselves on the board quickly. Steve has always had a knack for the “orangiest” of all freshwater fish, and he landed our one and only koi of the day.
There truly aren’t that many koi anymore. I got about a half dozen decent shots but they snubbed me every time. Finally, along came a hefty common carp and I was able to piece things together.
I stalked this carp end to end against a cement wall for about fifteen minutes. Its amazing I never spooked him because it took at least ten casts before he took a look at my fly. The fly by the way was a damsel nymph tied by another AZ pal, Mike Faulkinbury. When the carp finally made a move towards the fly, he still didn’t eat it but rather tailed over it and then lost interest until I gently stripped it again. After tracking it almost the length of my cast, he finally picked it up. I could see the eat clearly and stuck him good with a swift strip strike. And let me tell you, this fish put up a heck of a fight on my Winston 5-weight Air 2!
We each caught one more common carp each. Steve’s was sort of a koi/common cross. My second carp was another big fatty. Though we only landed four fish between the two of us in about seven hours of fishing, any day not getting skunked on carp is a success.
Tonight I delivered my new “Chasing Species and how it makes You a Better Angler” to Arizona Fly Casters Club. It was very nice evening at the club. Tomorrow its back on the carp canal waters of inner Phoenix.