January Fish

Van Stacey introduced his brother Marty to fly fishing this season at Blue River.  All in all, Marty has probably been a half a dozen times or so.  He has taken to fly fishing like a duck to water and it's easy to tell he's hooked and now in love with the art. 

Saturday morning the two of them had a planned trip to the catch and release area at Blue.  They invited me to go, but the mercantile store had my early ownership and since I was at the catch and release area on Wednesday, I politely said, "Thanks anyway". 

At the end of their day they had landed twenty-seven trout.  The flies that produced for Marty and Van, were brown and black buggers, the Frenchie Pink, and I think maybe Van said a midge pattern.  Also, out of simple curiosity Van tied on a pink bugger to see if it would catch trout... and it did.  The pink bugger landed four trout.  Sure a lot of pink floating around on Blue River these days. 

Marty netting a rainbow.

 

I did have plans to go to the campground area of Blue on Saturday.  Ralph Fullenwider and Steve Wolf were both camped for the weekend and I hope to sit around their camp drinking coffee or cold beer - whichever presented itself the best to me at the time.

 

However, I became bogged down at the mercantile store and instead of making a rushed trip to Blue, I decided to stay around home and the local creek.  Over the years, I've made plenty of rushed trips to the river. 

 

Several days ago I caught a rare January carp.  Around mid-afternoon on Saturday I decided to hit the creek and see if I could repeat the rarity. The water is still quite cold and carp are generally not active when the water temperature is in the 30's or 40's. 

 

Rock Creek is as clear as Blue River right now - gin clear.  I could easily see the carp bunched up together and they could easily see me.  My roll casts sent them packing long before the line ever hit the water so I had to think of something else.

 

 

 

With a low profile side arm roll cast I got the Aftermath carp fly to the carp without spooking them and while employing a slow retrieve a rather nice carp slammed the Aftermath.

 

 

 

This fellow had some spunk in him and wasn't lethargic like I expected him to be.  The battle lasted a good long while, but finally he tired.  I simply put him up by the bank and without so much touching him removed the Aftermath. 

 

We're still in a drought here in Oklahoma and although we have received a fair amount of moisture back in the fall and early winter, the drought has raised it's ugly head again.  Hopefully, the spring-time rains will come this year and fly fishing for carp will be possible this season.