Posted a quick mention of this in the Carp/Capr thread, but why not make a thread for a milestone, eh?
Headed out to my local Columbia River stretch for my favorite mid-summer program: Steelcarp. Depending on if I go morning or evening, I spend the afternoon hours after carp, and the morning/evening hours trying some top secret pinch points for steelhead. This was an afternoon/evening outing.
This particuar day had clouds in the forecast but was supposed to MOSTLY burn off by afternoon. Well, the burn didn't happen, and not only was it cloudy, it was completely overcast. Not a sliver of blue sky to be seen. For those uninitiated: clouds = glare that you cannot see ANYTHING below the surface with. You always think "I'll just make it work." Well, it doesn't work. I promise.
Except when it does. I have a carpy spot that has substantially clearer water than most others where you get a lot of that dust plume that lingers when the carp are feeding. There's a bit of current so it stays clean. I also tend to fish right up where it drops from like 3' deep to 20' deep on a very steep incline, with a weed line right next to it. The carp patrol this drop off area.
The best part: In the afternoon, you get a sort of reflection from the basalt cliffs that cuts the glare from the right angle, so can be worth exploring on the right days.
We started going along the break and spotting a few fish, but all were tucked into spots where getting them to see a fly was next to impossible. To make matters more challenging, my friend, who loves carping, often struggles to see them. I can give him exact coordinates, point, etc, and he's always looking waaaaay past where I'm explaining or pointing, or just not able to see. So I get frustrated quickly.
In one of the clearings to the sand flat, I spotted a curious gray shape beneath the glare. I spot locked the boat (we were in about 20' of water with the 3' sandy clearing about a 50' cast away). Spent 30 secs trying to explain where this spot was. He never picked up what I was putting down, so I thought I'd "demonstrate" where I was explaining by putting a cast on it, so I did.
I let the fly sink out of sight about 1' in front of where I suspected its head was. I saw the shape shift toward my fly, so I counted to 3 and set the hook. It was met with a considerable amount of resistance, but it didn't freak out and run like they often do, at least not at first.
After a few seconds, it moved toward the break and started to pick up speed. Thankfully, it didn't do the usual escape move they love to do in spots like this and run into the weed patch. I used the Minn Kota to move the boat further away from the break so I could convince the fish to stay in open water, which was effective, but it decided it wanted to be deep down, which becomes a challenge to fight with a vintage fiberglass rod.
At this point in the fight, or for the first few mins, I had no clue the size class of this fish. There was even a period where I thought I may have foul hooked it because I couldn't seem to move it despite the constant max pressure. I'd make a few feet of progress, and it'd take me on another long run. I eventually got it close to the boat for a view and got a new appreciation for why this fight was taking so long. This was in another size class than I'd gotten in a very long time.
After what I estimate was 10-15mins, we finally got it to the net. I'm thankful I had my salmon net with me as my usual carp net had no chance to contain this fish. I regret not getting tape measurements on this thing to get an accurate size estimate, but it was a 20lb class fish by my best educated guess. I've hit mid to upper teens (confirmed) before, and this was a step above that.
So here it is with the best size comparison I could give in a photo:
Headed out to my local Columbia River stretch for my favorite mid-summer program: Steelcarp. Depending on if I go morning or evening, I spend the afternoon hours after carp, and the morning/evening hours trying some top secret pinch points for steelhead. This was an afternoon/evening outing.
This particuar day had clouds in the forecast but was supposed to MOSTLY burn off by afternoon. Well, the burn didn't happen, and not only was it cloudy, it was completely overcast. Not a sliver of blue sky to be seen. For those uninitiated: clouds = glare that you cannot see ANYTHING below the surface with. You always think "I'll just make it work." Well, it doesn't work. I promise.
Except when it does. I have a carpy spot that has substantially clearer water than most others where you get a lot of that dust plume that lingers when the carp are feeding. There's a bit of current so it stays clean. I also tend to fish right up where it drops from like 3' deep to 20' deep on a very steep incline, with a weed line right next to it. The carp patrol this drop off area.
The best part: In the afternoon, you get a sort of reflection from the basalt cliffs that cuts the glare from the right angle, so can be worth exploring on the right days.
We started going along the break and spotting a few fish, but all were tucked into spots where getting them to see a fly was next to impossible. To make matters more challenging, my friend, who loves carping, often struggles to see them. I can give him exact coordinates, point, etc, and he's always looking waaaaay past where I'm explaining or pointing, or just not able to see. So I get frustrated quickly.
In one of the clearings to the sand flat, I spotted a curious gray shape beneath the glare. I spot locked the boat (we were in about 20' of water with the 3' sandy clearing about a 50' cast away). Spent 30 secs trying to explain where this spot was. He never picked up what I was putting down, so I thought I'd "demonstrate" where I was explaining by putting a cast on it, so I did.
I let the fly sink out of sight about 1' in front of where I suspected its head was. I saw the shape shift toward my fly, so I counted to 3 and set the hook. It was met with a considerable amount of resistance, but it didn't freak out and run like they often do, at least not at first.
After a few seconds, it moved toward the break and started to pick up speed. Thankfully, it didn't do the usual escape move they love to do in spots like this and run into the weed patch. I used the Minn Kota to move the boat further away from the break so I could convince the fish to stay in open water, which was effective, but it decided it wanted to be deep down, which becomes a challenge to fight with a vintage fiberglass rod.
At this point in the fight, or for the first few mins, I had no clue the size class of this fish. There was even a period where I thought I may have foul hooked it because I couldn't seem to move it despite the constant max pressure. I'd make a few feet of progress, and it'd take me on another long run. I eventually got it close to the boat for a view and got a new appreciation for why this fight was taking so long. This was in another size class than I'd gotten in a very long time.
After what I estimate was 10-15mins, we finally got it to the net. I'm thankful I had my salmon net with me as my usual carp net had no chance to contain this fish. I regret not getting tape measurements on this thing to get an accurate size estimate, but it was a 20lb class fish by my best educated guess. I've hit mid to upper teens (confirmed) before, and this was a step above that.
So here it is with the best size comparison I could give in a photo:
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