Carp, Music, Art, And Brew

Most likely those that read my scribblings with some kind of frequent fashion have come to believe that I am one dimensional, with that dimension owned being catching carp and other species with the flies I tie. 

I will be the first to admit that I am far from being the most interesting man in the world, however I do have other interests besides fly fishing. 

When Saturday rolled around I will tell you that I had an itch to capture a carp by way of fly.  But, I also knew there was an event taking place on Saturday and this event held a number of things that draw and hold my interest.  Therefore, I decided to go to the carp creek and catch one carp and one carp only.

Before leaving the bunkhouse I decided to tie up another Aftermath carp fly.  On this fly though, I wanted to try something new by adding pink, more precisely cerise, to the pattern.  Cerise is the color that brought me hundreds of trout this past trout season using the Frenchie pattern.  Taking the cerise colored rabbit fur I gave the Aftermath a collar and off to the creek we went.

The pasture I chose to fish is called Big Well Springs.  The Johnson grass here is taller than I am and trying to wade through it is like being a jungle warfare combatant.  On the other hand, the tall Johnson grass gives the angler fantastic concealment and the carp can be approached undetected.  Upstream I saw movement in the water and it was telling me feeding carp in the shallows.

I saw a young carp and decided to target this lad.  The cast I made was less than spectacular with the fly going across the back end of the carp.  He immediately begin to move and I quickly pulled the fly past him and let it drop about a foot in front.  He swam straight to the fly and sucked it in. 

For a youngster he had a lot of fight. 

 

About the time I released the carp the event downtown was scheduled to begin, so fishing was done for me and it was back to the bunkhouse to get cleaned up.

 

 

The Artesian hotel, spa, and resort is one of Oklahoma's grandest destinations.  The Chickasaw Nation finished this recreation of the famous Artesian hotel about a year ago and since it's opening travelers have flocked to take in it's beauty.  On Saturday, the first Artesian Arts Festival was held. 

 

Native art has always been an attraction for me.  Perhaps it's because I'm an Oklahoman and Oklahoma is rich in may different native tribes.  Or maybe it was the time I spent on the artisan streets of Albuquerque and Santa Fe years ago.  For me there is something wholesome and spiritual about native American art.

 

 

 

 

The festival  was just art.  There was a lot of good food to be sampled and there was music.  I don't know the name of the band, but they were quite talented.  The music continue all day with different genres throughout the event. 

 

 

Festival activities were taking place downtown in historic Sulphur so I drifting that way to take in more.  First though I stopped at the reflection garden the Chickasaw nation has built.  The focal point of this garden is flowing water and of course that always catches the attention of an angler.

 





 

 

I continued to drift westward into downtown and then there it was... like a shining beacon in a dry desert.  It was a watering hole.

 

 

There went the rest of the day.