Carp on the Fly: The Interview

Posted on May 12, 2008

I’ve already declared 2008 the Year of the Carp. One reason for that, besides occasionally obsessing about weird fish, is I’m tired of living vicariously through the exploits of John Montana, who posts all about whacking carp on one of my favorite blogs, Carp on the Fly. He also routinely competes for the Slab of the Month on Moldy Chum. (I think he won the whole year once.) There are several stages to the carp fly fisherman, and since I’m still at the flailing like an idiot stage I figured I’d pick his brain about how to get it done. He was kind enough to answer my questions: 1. What is it about carp that makes a grown man dedicate so much of his free…

Tagged: carp, carp on the fly, Fly Fishing

REVIEW: All The Best

Posted on May 8, 2008

The most famous of fly fishermen are famous for something else. Ted Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Tiger Woods…(probably the most recognizable of all time is a pretend one, Brad Pitt as Paul Maclean)…The lone exception to that would be Lefty Kreh. In the fly fishing community at least, he is a one-namer, like ”Babe” to baseball fans, “Jerry” to VW van owners, or “OJ” to celebrity murder enthusiasts. (OK, maybe that last one doesn’t work so well.) Now Flip Pallot, not so unknown a name himself, is paying tribute to Lefty’s life in the new book All The Best. A hardcover tome filled with tons of photographs and testimonials from many other fly fishing brand names, All The Best reads how you’d like to think a book would turn…

Tagged: Fly Fishing, lefty kreh

FLIES: Bass Hook Fly

Posted on May 7, 2008

A blurry, out-of-focus photo of a haphazzardly tied bendback on a bass hook. I guess it’s more aptly described as a weedless, but whatever, they’ve worked well for bass. I’ve been tying them to use on my northern pike trip next week. She ain’t pretty but she gits it done.

Tagged: benback, Fly Fishing, fly tying, northern pike

KEYS: Tarpon Frustration

Posted on May 1, 2008

Everyone’s seen the hero footage of noble saltwater fly anglers matching wits with silver kings, but thefin.com has two short clips showing what fly fishing for tarpon is really like, a lot of the time.

Tagged: Florida Keys, Fly Fishing, tarpon

Bows in the Gloaming

Posted on April 30, 2008

Longer days make late afternoon sneak-aways easier to come by. Fish the hour before dusk and see what happens. I wish I could better remember the ones I caught today, but thoughts of those are being pushed out by the all-consuming cinder block hook-up. The one where the rainbow with shoulders explodes upon contact with your fly, crashes back to earth like a cinder block, leaps again, falls back down and then disappears. It left me standing in the stream with a slack line, a rushing sound in my head from the adrenaline spike, and nothing more to do but throw up my hands and cuss. “That was a monster,” I heard the guy upstream from me yell after I lost it. I think he was…

Tagged: Fly Fishing, rainbow trout

Trout in Hand

Posted on April 27, 2008

This evening’s post is sponsored by the color brown.

Tagged: brown trout, Fly Fishing

The A.S.S. Post

Posted on April 26, 2008

I read somewhere in a magazine, maybe ThisIsFly or something, about the artsy scenic shot being a sure sign someone got skunked. To that, here are some Artsy Skunk Shots from the beach… Low Tide Jellyfish Match the hatch… Rod in Dead Tree Shot

Tagged: beach, Fly Fishing, long island, striped bass

Why Carp?

Posted on April 24, 2008

(Photo from Carp on the Fly.) Why have I declared 2008 the year of the carp? (For me anyway; Eric Byrnes of the AZ Diamondbacks has declared it to be “The Year of the Mustache.”) Because when I check out other blogs like the DayTripper and read stuff like this: There’s an age old question. What happens when an unmovable object is hit with an unstoppable force? I don’t know about all that physics stuff, but what I do know is that when you take an unmovable object and combine it with an unstoppable force, you get a Carp. I don’t care if you’ve got a 10wt and 50 pound test, you aren’t going to make one of these fish do anything they don’t…

Tagged: carp, Fly Fishing

NYC: Not Far From The Madding Crowd

Posted on April 23, 2008

Never fish Central Park during a school holiday. I headed up to the Park and met up with Randy Kadish and Matt Stansberry’s brother Nate to try for some bass. So did about 800 other people. I guess when you’re in a city comprised of millions, expecting to find fly fishing solace on a 70 degree day in the Park when school’s out is not realistic. For every ten feet of water I worked, a guy with a spinner and a soft plastic rig would be working ahead of me. Sloppy seconds doesn’t get the bass. Kids were throwing rocks in the remaining heretofore undisturbed water. We were lucky to get a couple of bluegill and crappie. Still, there’s something gratifying about clicking through the…

Tagged: bass, bluegill, carp, Central Park, crappie, Fly Fishing, New York City

Shadows and Fog

Posted on April 10, 2008

You might call it desperation, but I’ll choose to call it casting practice. All this self-inflicted striper talk prompted me to try this morning. I fished the falling tide on a beach where the stripers typically show up first each season. I stepped into the water amid a dense morning fog that burned off as the sun rose. It felt good to be wading in saltwater. But I felt no need to strip strike as I never got close to anything resembling a follow. As the sun climbed higher I felt too hot in my layering and for that (and the fact that I could see a distinct shadow from the brightness) I felt pretty happy. In a month’s time I’ll be doing this by…

Tagged: Fly Fishing, striped bass

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