Carp Trip - Day one

The plan was loosely devised last winter and only inked in late May.  In the past, McSteel and I had tried fishing a certain Great Lakes area for carp in August and early June.  Both were unsuccessful.  "They're not here yet" and, "they're long gone", were the reports we got from both of those trips.  This year we decided to shoot for Mid-Late June.  With the blessings from home to spend Father's Day Weekend fishing, we both pulled a Friday off and hit the road Thursday night.

You can always tell that the need to take a trip is long past due when a four hour drive seems to take 90 minutes and every song (on shuffle) sounds good.

I beat him to the campsite by an hour but had only taken my first pull off an icy beer when his headlights lit up my freshly set tent and camp chair, which, comprised the sum total of my "making camp" plans on this trip.  Within a few minute his chair and tent completed the symmetry of our base and he cracked a cold one and had a seat.

At 4:30 the birds announced the start of a new day, but being the savvy anglers were are, we knew that sunlight and visibility were critical so we temporarily shut out the very nature we came to enjoy in favor of a few more hours of sleep.

I rolled out at 7.  By 8 we were seated at the only occupied table in the Mexican restaurant, ordering beans and rice and eggs and hot stuff to put on beans and rice and eggs.

At 9 were were launching the Battle Skiff into one of our great lakes, the Yeti was freshly iced and carried enough calories to keep us on the water all day.  We had between us, 4 or 5 rods, spools of tippet and enough flies to throw a confetti party if the need for such a celebration should present itself.

It was probably 9:30 before the first carp swam by.  A big, dark, moving contrast from the brightly lit flats we were poling.  The fish made its way to a back bay and we, with no plans and full day in which to complete them, followed.

In terms of a carp mission this was a HUGE mistake.

We found the carp and even a few more.  The tragedy was that they were mixed in among so many smallmouth bass willing to take a topwater gurgler sputtering across the surface, we lost our focus and the day morphed into what can only be described as spectacular smallmouth fishing.

When the first fish cast to inhales your fly, raises hell and then tapes out at just shy of 20 inches...one is forced to do some soul searching.  What is the reason of life?  Why are we here?

As it turns out, we are here to take full advantage of whatever opportunities present themselves.

Today it was smallmouth.  And so the morning went...

Though we spent a few hours in the afternoon taking shots at carp (of which there were many), we only had a handful of fish track the fly and nobody seemed too hungry.  Recounting the vicious grabs from the smallmouth, we abandoned our initial mission for the second time and turned back to the eager smallies.

Later, around the campfire with most all of a bottle of Grey Goose dispatched, I yawned the yawn of the good tired, and noticed a stitch in my side and concluded it was most likely the side effects from giggling like a school boy all day.

I'd love to write you a post with a moral, a tidbit of wisdom or even a punchline, something witty to leave you with.  But, when the assignment is to write a descriptive essay on perfection, words fail... You'll just have to try and understand the alignment of stars that allow for two friends to have a day on the water like you've only read about.