Pages

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Tail of the Golem

I didn't go looking for Smaug the dragon or the ring of power or anything Tolken-esque but I did come across something resembling Golem. But there was a lot leading up to that. The flats were more like the Shire than Mordor considering the great conditions and numerous targets. I had to hike a bit before I got to the water and on the way I had two close encounters of the reptilian kind. Rattle snakes are quite common in the shrub steppe country of the Columbia Basin. So after wading for about forty-five minutes I was finally seeing carp.



The first fish I caught was in a group three that were milling around slowly in a small sandy bay in  about o foot of water. I caught a few others in this spot too.



These flats produced quite a few fish for the rest of the wade. But the most memorable take was about a fifty foot cast to a trailer in six inches of water with it's head angled away from me at about forty-five degrees. The fly landed a little behind the fish's left ear. A couple of short strips and the carp turned but didn eat until following the fly for two more sets of strips. That girl had a nice set of lips on her too. Next I found a small cove that five tailers in it. I was able to catch three of them before the other two were onto me.



I caught several more carp until I got to the end of the flat. And there was some by-catch too.





When I got to the end of the flat I still had plenty of time so I hit another spot. The carp there were all cruising in very still skinny water and they appeared to have pre-spawn tendencies. I didn't think I was going to catch any on this flat but I moved very slow to keep from spooking fish that were all around me. It was tough there but I did manage to catch a few.







And then there was this strange ogle-eyed creature that looked like it got lost on its way back to the cave ponds beneath The Lonely Mountain. This carp had a much enlarged left eye reminiscent of a lion-head goldfish. When I looked closer at the eye it appeared to have some sort of small egg-like structures rolling around in it. Needless to say this was very interesting and I have had a course in parasitology so in no way was I going to touch that thing. The thought of it makes me itch as I write this.





By all means if anyone has any idea what creature has afflicted this poor fish I would like to know. But it was a great day. I caught a lot of fish with the biggest being about fifteen pounds and I caught Golem too. On the fly none the less!





5 comments:

  1. Excellent report Travis! A great day of fishing. Let's get together again this summer and chase some Carp.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Mr P! Just let me know when you want to go!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice! We will get out soon Travis.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sounds good John! Just let me know!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've seen that before with injured carp. Makes me wonder if something punctured the eye as that is when I've seen that google eye effect.

    Gregg

    ReplyDelete