Tench!

I can add this one to the list... Not that common in North America but there is a few places with them established. They have a huge following with the Euro anglers. Most Tench in the states seem to be in private waters for some reason. I was suprised how scrappy they are for there size. Fine scales similar to trout and an interesting slime coat that is said to heal wounds of other fish and humans. It's an intersting fish. They feed primarily on plankton as fry and move onto the incect world very simalar to trout. they can be had with a fly rod or bait. I caught half a dozen with the biggest pictured below. The first 4 were little guys about 12"..The biggest one was 17+ inches, thick and close to 3lbs. In Europe they exceed 8lbs pretty regularly in both lakes and rivers. The lake is teaming with Tench and quality carp in the 10-18lb range. I also caught a few Crucian "ghost carp" today. They are deap bodied fish about 4lbs and fight like hell. They have a sort of washed out color pattern, hence the name ghost carp. The three big fish I landed were a hand full on 8lb test. I had a net today and that made things way more effecient. The weather was great at about 70 degrees..I kinda wish I had brought some flies to fish the surf perch as the Ocean was flat calm with knee high breakers at Pleasure point this morning. Perfect conditions!

Carp fishing..

Recently I was invited to fish a small lake near the coast. Turned out to be a sweet place Loaded with Carp, Tench, Sac Perch and Northern Strain LM. It really is a killer place... This is one of those places you have to hold close and i'm gratefull someone was kind enough to share it with me. That and he's a hell of a nice guy. It's situated very close to the beach so I stopped and took in the sunset tonight over the Pacific In Santa Cruz. It was stunning. The photo of the light house is exactly how it looked. Sight fishing for the carp on the fly is possible and I will be going back often. Today we fished hair rigs with a special rock salt maze and that definitly did the trick. It was fun and it's not a gimme with light spinning gear thats for sure. Unfortunalty no Tench. No sign of them. Will head back tommorow to try and get one.

Delta

Got a late start and didn't launch until almost 10:30.. Fishing was off today. Tides were good, temp was good and we had a small front coming in so it should have been great. Hit many locations and most had one maybe two fish. They were really spread out. Not to many dinks today though. Most were nice hard fighting 24-25" fish. The sky was full of weather but it never really hit me. I was ready for it...The drive home went through several micro climates; from warm and humid to wind, rain and hail on the passes and back to pouring rain when I made back to the house. Now it's clear and cool out. That means manana will likely blow like SOB. We'll see.

Carp on the fly...

I'm obsessed with these fish. They are sooo frustrating and so simple at the same time. I fished Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I blanked. Had two half hearted grabs but just couldn't get a good presentation on them with an 8wt and blew most of the shots. Fish were everywhere with a nice warm fall day in the high 60s. The 8 was just too clunky for close in fish and most of them made me. I went back this morning detirmined not to skunk. I changed up to a 5wt with a clear/camo intermediate and stayed as low and stealthy as I could. All the fish I caught were in less than 12" of water so stealth was key. The changes helped, today I had 7 solid takes and stuck 6 of those. I did spook a few but over all there were way less fish in the shallows today vs yesterday with temps in the low 40s last night. They came in singles or schools of less than 5 fish. They were slow to get going and I wasn't sure they were going to get up in skinny water at all, after only seeing half a dozen fish the first three hours. They started moving in about noon and it was steady all afternoon but they seemed to locate closer to the main lake than on saturday. The sun was in and out and that didn't help but all in all a fun time and they really scream on a 5wt! There isn't any human cover so I camped at one of the only stick ups and used that as a blind and it worked out well. Weather was cool and Fall is here!

Today

I fished different water on the Delta. Clarity is unreal with 4-6ft vis almost everywhere I went. I was actually looking for dirty water which I don't do that often for stripers. Small fish at the first two stops I made. Popped a good largemouth and went that direction with flies and plastics the remainder of the day. All in all a good day. Great fall weather with the high of 70-72. No wind to speak of and light boat traffic. Just kinda slow out there.

Cal Delta

When we were leaving the house it started misting. We were both not at all expecting any rain and knew it was just a mist. As we get closer it was really pouring and now we knew we made a bad call not bringing full rain gear and it was going to be a long day. Once we hit the delta area it was calm and just a really nice morning. Fishing was great for numbers if you just want to catch fish. Some areas held better quality so we focused on those and ended the day with some decent Stripers on the fly rods. Nothing to get to excited about but we were kept busy. It was great to get back out there. Ran accross some California Delta wildlife! Wading cattle and river otters. The otters are a pretty cool creature but I got to tell you they are filthy as hell. We came accross a dock they called home and it was nasty.... Still a really cool animal though!

Florida trip

Fantastic trip despite the up and down weather and the damn bugs. I didn't let it stop me from fishing. I'm paying for it now but it was worth it. It was a DIY trip. No guides. Just me going and finding fish. I'm sure I could have done better with a guide but I was happy with what I did catch. I caught my first Tarpon and Snook on the fly and had a great flurry one day with some of some of the biggest Trout I have ever seen! Had shots at red fish and caught half a dozen or more other speices. Never know whats next there thats for sure. I learned a lot about the fishery and the area. The Manatee were amazing up close. Pauletta was really stoked to get so close to them. She could have stayed there for hours. Probly would have except the fire ants were charging us. Ha. We had a great time. Paul came over and we fished one day and had a blast. We both got tore up by the bugs bad. Here is a group of photos not in order unfortunatly. Some fish I couldn't capture on film since I was solo but I got plenty of pics to give the general idea of what I was catching. Click on a photo to enlarge.