Rainy Day Carp

Rainy day carp don't eat, they just watch ‘till they've seen all the flies you've got. (No...wait, that’s not how the Gordon Lightfoot lyrics go.) Sometimes carp will take a fly even in the least likely conditions. You just never know. If fishing in the rain is your only option, then ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Yes—this spring has been one of the more torturous for me in a long, long time. (Well…as far as my days off corresponding with decent weather, that is—everything else has been almost oddly spectacular.) The weather, however…complete shit. I have been spending five days a week in the fly shop talking to other fishermen, offering opinions on rods and wading boots, selling flies hand over fist and occasionally glancing out the big windows overlooking Boulder and the foothills. Beautiful, sunny days…every one of the five days. Then I have two off—and the bowels of windy, cold and drizzling fly-fishing hell open up and engulf my weekend. It has made for some great Blue-Winged Olive hatches on the local streams, but I am a carp head at heart. I day dream of big tails flopping out of the mirror-smooth water like the dead man’s hand at the end of Deliverance. I fantasize at night about hot sun on endless mudflats. If I was a rich man I suppose I would roll in a nicer truck and spend my winters in places like Belize and the Bahamas. But I ain’t. Forget the champagne. Crack the seal of a Miller High Life…and tie carp flies on a rainy spring day.

And then, I could not take it anymore. My last day off was another miserable mess. Cold, muddy and raining—like March in the Mid-West. I had to do what I could to find feeding carp. I joined up with my friend, Cody (who just graduated from high school!) and we went on the hunt. The conditions were the worst…cool water with nearly zero viability… But we had one thing going for us: the public park we went to was vacant of people—too rotten for the fair-weather types. So, the carp that were normally skittish during the day (because of the kids and dogs and joggers bouncing about on shore) were in close and shallow. They were not overly active…but we were able to get flies in front of a few.

                                                 And, wadda ya know…