Broken Hooks and Broken Hearts

I've lost a lot of fish this season. Human error, broken tippets, or simply coming unhooked. Breaking a hook, however was the final straw for me:
I tie these little worm flies on stainless steel saltwater hooks. The fish that snapped the bottom one wasn't even that big (for a carp anyway,) and not nearly as big as the monster that broke my line a few days before that.
So I went shopping. I bought heavier tippet and new, larger hooks. I tied up a bunch of carp flies and hit the water again. The conditions are still pretty bad. The water remains very murky, much worse than last year, but the carp are active and I can usually find a couple in the shallows where they can be caught:

This action shot is a self-portrait. The fish decided to go for a bit of a swim so I had time to reach over and set the self-timer on the camera.

I usually take a picture of a fish as soon as I get it out of the water. It's a posterity shot, just in case it escapes before I can take a proper photo.

The "proper" photo.

Fish in a Bucket

If you fish one place long enough you end up with a pretty intimate knowledge of the bottom. You remember where the stumps and the rocks are, the channels and drop-offs. This is especially true with carp fishing. When the surface is rippling and the water is a little bit cloudy, it's easy to spot a big carp, and only a dozen heart pounding casts later realize to your great embarrassment that you have been trying to catch a log.
Unfortunately, on heavily used waters, not all the submerged obstacles are natural. About three quarters of the way along one of my favorite flats is a small red bucket. The type of bucket a child would use to build sand castles at the beach. The other day as I approached this spot I saw a suspicious cloud of mud. Curiously I approached, and saw a carp feeding with it's head stuck completely inside the bucket! I must have waited poised for a minute or more. Each time I thought the fish was done I'd see the tail quiver and the head disappear into the bucket again. When it finally emerged, I made sure that my worm fly was the first thing it saw. You can guess how that turned out:
Sure made me wonder though, what was in the bucket?

Under the Lights

Night fishing season has started! My secret spot under the lights is a great place to hunt carp on hot summer nights. It's still early in the season so it's mostly the "small" carp that are feeding in the shallows:


The stretch of shoreline where I fish is not very long. Each time I hook up, the commotion scares most of the feeding fish away and I have to wait patiently for a while before they begin to come back. On this night I was able to wait them out and catch a second carp before packing it in for the evening:


Even though night fishing for carp is about as simple as can be - the main requirements being patience and stealth, I was reminded that even at it's easiest, catching carp is tricky business.

dapper chap

Tara and I went fishing yesterday. Well, I went fishing. Tara sat on the bow and read celebrity gossip magazines...Anyway, with the water still murky, the best carping strategy at this point is still 'dapping,' that is, trying to wade close enough to the fish that you can drop your fly right on their heads. Being this close is the only way you'll have a chance to actually see if they take the fly. The only other option is blind-casting, but that is low percentage method with carp.
I anchored the boat in the shade and slipped into the water. I hadn't taken two steps when I saw a big tail moving towards me along the bank. I half hid behind a flooded tree, and as soon as the fish came near I dropped my nymph in the water. The carp immediately turned, inhaled, and the fight was on:
It was a big fish. I turned it's head towards open water and watched my fly line disappear off the reel. When the initial run ended I was a few turns from my backing. The fish cruised heavily back and forth while I struggled to regain some line. And then gently, like a sigh of disappointment, the hook came free.
Disappointed I was, but not discouraged. There were fish in the area and I could catch them.
Peering into the murk, I caught sight of another tail. As I got closer I could make out two fish, one significantly larger than the other. This is always a delicate situation. I wanted the bigger fish, but I had to be careful not to spook the smaller one or the game would be up. Ever so slowly I moved into position. When the fish looked up from feeding and began to move, I dropped my fly on the larger one which sucked it up agreeably.
This was a good sized fish and it fought that way. I did see my backing this time, and when I finally pulled the fish to hand I had a large red imprint on my stomach where I had braced my rod. Well worth the pain though...

After the Flood

The flood has receded, but the waters remain murky. After a morning of frustrated sight-fishing, I landed a small female carp. She took my fly and headed straight for the trees. Once I coaxed her through the branches and back out into open water, she swam directly at me. At one point she actually bumped into my leg! Despite her best efforts, I got her head into the net, took a few photos and returned her whence she came.
I also had my first bit of luck jug-fishing for carp today. More on that later...

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Dead Fish.

The carp hatchlings have died! Every day there were a few more fatalities, but the majority of our small fry were eating and growing steadily, though slowly. Yesterday I awoke to find all of the fish had perished in the night.
This is not as surprising as it might seem. Just a tiny bit of soap residue on my hands, or too great a temperature difference between the tank and the water I added the evening before could easily have caused the catastrophe.
Despite this setback, my first attempt at raising wild carp was more successful than I had anticipated, so I was anxious to collect more eggs and try again.

half of a large catamaran and a semi trailer

Unfortunately, an abnormal amount of rain this month has caused high waters everywhere, making egg collecting nearly impossible. yacht club sailboats; the catamaran on the right is still attached to it's trailer

The flooding has also made fishing frustrating - mostly because I'm not sure how the various species will respond to these conditions. I did find one feisty fellow swimming in a flooded meadow:

It's Alive!

In my experience, there are three stages to aquaculture.
Stage one: Hatching the eggs.
Stage two: development from fry to juveniles.
Stage three: juvenile to adult.
Stage one was unexpectedly successful. After just three days, the carp eggs hatched, leaving me with easily one hundred baby carp, and very few unhatched eggs. For a day or so, the fry clung to the bottom or the sides of the aquarium, presumably feeding off the remaining yolk from their eggs.
However, stage two is by far the most difficult step. Once the fish are juveniles (basically miniature adults) they will eat whatever adult carp eat, provided it is in small enough pieces, but the fry can be very selective. Often they feed heavily on rotifers of a certain size, and finding a substitute for this wild fare can be very difficult.