Ahhhh, Spring!!

Today was absolutely gorgeous. Light winds, warm temperatures and not a cloud in the sky. I went for walk in the woods mid--morning to stretch out my back which I had disk surgery on last week. I found myself walking down a path that is an old railroad bed that runs to the Sudbury river. As I walked along the railroad bed I was about 10 feet above the water and could see very well into the water. The first fish I saw was a nice largemouth bass in the 4 0r 5 pound range protecting what appeared to be the start of a nest. I threw some bread near it and it just sort of seemed annoyed at it. I moved about 50 feet down the causeway to another clearing and tossed some more bread into the water. Within a minute I saw the first carp of the season slide in toward shore in search of the bread. As I threw more bread, more carp appeared. It seemed that they were coming up out of the river, maybe for the first time this season, and were curious. I walked back out of the wood and headed to my truck. There I decided to get my waders on and make my first trip of the season to the carp fields.

I checked out the usual hole by the causeway and there was nothing in it. I think the water is just too shallow this year and unless the level rises soon, the carp won't make it into that area this season. I walked around the corner and toward the railroad causeway. As I was walking across the flooded grass I spotted a fish about 10 feet in front of me, laid up in the grass in knee-deep water. It was a nice pike about 36 inches long. It was facing directly at me so I just did a roll cast with the small white bread fly I had already tied onto my tippet back at the truck. The pike completely ignored my offering so I made several more casts to it and finally spooked it with one cast that was just a bit too close.

I worked my way over toward the causeway where I had earlier on my walk successfully chummed up the fish. They were still there milling around. I began throwing bread and within a couple minutes I had about 8 fish aggressively searching for food. I made a cast and immediately a fish ate my fly. Before I could set the hook, however, the fish spit it. It had felt the hook and made a lot of commotion, spooking most of the other fish out of the area.

I let the area settle down a bit and went back a few minutes later. I was able to get more fish back fairly quickly and soon there were some new fish feeding aggressively again. There was one fish that seemed very eager and was taking bread off the surface. He (or she) was one of the bigger fish I've seen and before long I was able to get it to eat my fly. It made two blistering runs toward the river. The little 6-weight was really maxed out but after about 5 minutes I had the fish by my side and was able to grab the hook with my needlenose pliers and let it swim off. I'd guess the fish was al of 20 pounds, and if someone told me it went 30 pounds, I'd believe them. I never touched the fish and never took it out of the water, so I really have no idea. I do know it was just slightly shorter than my leg and very fat.

I decided I had had enough exercise for the day and my back was beginning to bark at me, so I headed back to my truck. Hopefully I'll get another shot at them tomorrow.