dc410 wrote:
The spawn appears to be wrapped up at least in the area I'm fishing and the carp are back into their normal shallow water feeding patterns. I had a good day of carpin' yesterday. I started out the day by bringing two carp to the net in a quick one half hour outing before sunrise and than headed off to work.
As I was mowing the yard earlier in the week I noticed the berries just starting to ripen up on my mulberry tree out in my back yard so I knew that the time was drawing near. The conditions last evening after work were perfect with a bit of a breeze to knock the early ripening mulberries into the water so I headed to one of my favorite "berry" holes to see what was happening. I carefully approached my best berry spot and peeked over the top of the tall weeds and there they were! Six or eight good looking carp cruising around like sharks just under the surface sucking every mulberry that dropped off of the surface. This appeared to be simple if I didn't spook them. I got out the right amount of line and took my time preparing for the first and most important presentation. I plopped the berry onto the surface near the group of fish and immediately four of them went after the fly! In a confusing thrashing of their big rubber lips I just decided to strip set and effectively pulled the fly right out of the middle of all of the fish. Dang! Carp are almost in slow motion when they take a berry off the surface and every year I need to retrain myself to relax and let them complete the take. I let the group settle down a bit and picked out one of the original fish that was now off to the side by itself. I placed the berry about three feet in front of the carp and it quickly swam right up under it, inspected it closely and flat out refused to take it. Did I mention the fact earlier that these fish are not stupid. I sat and watched these fish feed on berries for about 10 minutes and another pair of different fish entered the feeding zone. A decent cast to one of these fish resulted in my first carp of the year taken on a dry fly. I rounded out the evening by netting two more carp bringing me five to the net for the day. Not a bad day of carpin' for the time I actually spent on the water. The berry hatch is on! The next couple of weeks should be a lot of fun just got to take the time to get out there and cash in on it. Good luck if you happen across a pod of berry picking carp.
