Treasures Under The Leaves

Blanket of leaves make a difficult jigsaw puzzle.

The last two days trying to carp by fly have been most difficult.  Right now, I think taking carp by fly is the most difficult it's ever been.  Conditions are simply against us whether it be the wind creating a constant hard riffle, the gray skies decreasing visibility, the lowering water level, or the jigsaw puzzle patches of leaves the carp hide under.  I'm not looking for excuses - we should be able to adapt.  However, I haven't figured it out yet and Charlie may have to take up my slack once he gets back.

Yesterday I fished for three hours covering a lot of water, but come home empty handed.  I cast to probably fifteen carp yesterday, but the riffle prevented me from sight fishing these creatures.  I found carp under the blankets, but getting the fly through that weave was next to impossible.

Today, I took a beer with me and decided to gingerly sip my beer and wait for the carp to appear from underneath the blanket of leaves.  About twenty-five foot across the water, one carp emerged from the fringes of the blanket and I rolled a Backstabber to him.  He was slow in coming to the fly... but he ate it.

Backstabber fly took this carp.

43 carp needed to reach our goal.

Reaching our goal of 250 is looking to get more and more difficult.  As I noted a couple of posts ago, Charlie is leaving for a week and at my place we have a vehicle down.  No... now we have two vehicles down and we are a two vehicle family.  I'm thinking we must have got into a bad batch of petro somewhere.  The schooner goes to the shop tomorrow morning and there goes my mobility. 

I so badly wanted to go to the river Blue this weekend, but just couldn't get there. 

Think I'll go look for a beater pickup so at least I can get to the water.