There’s nothing like the morning of Day 1 in a fly fishing competition. Whether it’s the World Championships like I experienced in South Africa this past February, or today for the Johnny Boyd Carp Classic right here on my beloved Blackfoot Reservoir, tournaments add a lot of excitement to a day of fishing. This one always begins with a delicious pancake breakfast for $5. All the money goes to the cause because Gary and Leslie Green donate the food and they cook it for everyone!
The entry fee per three man team is $150. Furthermore, each individual can spend another $20 and try to win big fish. All money raised here also goes to the cause. After a welcome speech by the committee and a rundown of all the rules, off we went to try and catch carp on the fly.
My team, Ben, Trevor and myself had a plan. We went right to where we saw thousands of carp yesterday. Sure they didn’t eat, but we didn’t exactly fish out of our minds. Today we went hard and meticulously. There was one problem however. The carp weren’t there.
Carp are unreal. What I love about them is that just when you think you have them figured out, they toss a loop at you. We felt that the sun would warm the water and they would come. But it never happened. At 12:30, after seeing zero fish exactly where yesterday by this time we’d seen a ton, we had to do something. First thing, was make a nice burger lunch and discuss a new plan of attack.
The plan was to move. Wind direction was different than yesterday and the water felt cooler. We snuck to one of my summer spots where I know the water is shallow and warms up faster than any other part of Blackfoot Reservoir.
Day 1 fishing ends between 4 and 5 PM. You need to be at the weigh in camp at 5. Any later and your day is disqualified. We didn’t get to the new spot until around 2:30. I hooked up with a nice fish blind casting at leaping carp with a brown woolly bugger at exactly 3:30. I could tell immediately that this fish ate it and wasn’t snagged by the fight. All I had to do now was land him – not as easy as written!
This fish started with a headshaking battle close to me. I was terrified that fly was going to pull out. Then he took off. And I mean OFF. I use a 6-weight rod and this rascal took me at least 50 yards into my backing. But in the end, a good ten minutes later, I landed the stunningly colored, fully scaled mirror carp.
That one fish would be it for my team today. I felt lucky. We reeled it in at 4:30 and made the dash to the weigh in. Out of the 30 teams there were only two where all three anglers caught a carp. Most of the rest caught one or none.
Our carp weighed in at 13.7 lbs. I was proud to unload him from my mirror carp decorated Yeti! The fantastic fish puts us in 10th place over all. Tomorrow we have work to do but anything can happen in a 2 Day fly fishing comp.
Tonight Trevor fed us and amazing spaghetti dinner. He made the sauce fresh and added in some sausage chunks. Then we lit the fire and once again visited with old friends and new. Time for bed. We need to kick some butt tomorrow!
0 Comments