Monday, March 18, 2013

Evening oddities... (with photo purge)

Things should never be too predictable.  What fun would it be to know exactly what was going to happen on any given outing?  The variation, the never-knowing-what-to-expect, and the little unpredictable twists make fishing trips worth it.  You never know if the next riffle, the next drift, or the next cast will produce the fish of a lifetime or a fight worth remembering.

Here's to playing catchup on pictures, mingled with some recent odd moments.  We (Shane and I) have hit the Henry's Fork a bit lately, done some night fishing elsewhere, and chased some carp.  The odd moments mentioned are from our most recent trip where we chased carp during the warmth and light of day, and then moved on to trout after the sun went down.

We haven't had the best of luck with our fly rods lately.  Shane actually broke number 4 a few days ago, and they all busted within a months period.  On a side note, I received the BVK (8wt) replacement in the mail recently, and here's hoping we can avoid strike three for it.  Shane's Cortland Procast (8wt) mysteriously busted at the tip a little while back.  It was still fishable, but the top section of the rod was eaten by the river (fell from his backpack) even more recently.  We had planned to chase carp and now he was without his carp rod.  Not wanting to bust his 5wt in some freak accident on carp he decided to purchase a $20 WalMart rod.  The crazy thing, it worked great throughout the day.  I'm sure Shane will give more detail on it, but that was oddity number one.  A $20 rod on beastly carp, who knew right?

The day had already been great as to the fishing, and the sun was sinking low behind wet looking clouds.  It was a pretty sunset through the rainclouds in the distance and we were admiring the colors when thunder rolled over us, telling of some distant lightning.  It seemed plenty far away, so we kept on casting to the mudding carp while enjoying the warmer evening.  All of the sudden there was a loud roaring as if a thunderclap was increasing its intensity, rather than getting quieter.  Shane and I looked at each other a bit confused when BAM!!!!  A jet flew right over our heads.  The sonic boom spooked the schools of carp surrounding us.  A second jet flying just as low followed a minute later.  It was cool to see, a bit spooky at first, and altogether unexpected. 

Once it was too dark to chase carp we headed to our night-time trout spot.  Fishing was good in the beginning and stayed steady the whole night.  As we were chatting and flinging flies into the darkness we began hearing a bizarre noise.  It was as if a cat mated with a wolverine, whose offspring mated with the rabbit from Monty Python and it was fighting or giving birth.  We nervously chuckled at how odd it sounded and then Shane yelled "CHUPACABRA!"  It became a joke for the rest of the trip, amidst the Taylor Swift-Goat impressions.  Later I flicked on my headlamp to unhook a fish and there were two extremely bright, beady eyes staring right back at me... "CHUPACABRA!"  That little mink scurried off and later we saw a cat with similar results.  Maybe it was a "you had to be there" moment.

Here are some more pictures from the trip, followed by leftover pictures from the Henry's Fork.

It all started with a friendly game of Carp Darts.

Need a bigger net


A long one


Killer fin color

An offering to the carp gods.


Classic Shane


Biggest one-arm so far

Memorable double



Fatty!

First brown from night-fishing this place and this season


Net full of trout.  One of the many doubles

Native


Henry's Fork













Why so serious?