A Piece I Just Put On My Blog

[Addicted to Creeks]

Hey guys, just started a blog not too long ago to rant and rave about...everything I can essentially. Just posted this last night appreciate any and all critiques.

The Grass Carp

The light from the sun is just starting to take on the angle that tells you that darkness is creeping up and time is running short on the pond. As if in response the pond seems to take on a living energy, an almost silent humming as the inhabitants of the pond wake up from their mid-day siestas and begin the nightly routine. Any other night you would be on the edge of what you know to be the shallowest end of the pond throwing streamers for the bass you swear you can see moving up to start feeding but not tonight. Tonight is the next step in something that has gnawed at you all winter, something you have plotted for and seen a thousand times over in your head at night...tonight is the night it happens.

It started late last summer as you wandered late into the afternoon around the edges of the pond casting lazily, more to avoid being inside than for any desire to do well at catching fish. In fact as you wander past the windmill the owners have installed beside the pond (only one of the cutesy installations that have ruined the illusion of the rugged fishermen you have convinced yourself you are, but the fish are here, so thats where you go) you are too busy watching a bluebird in a nearby tree to notice the Carp feeding. Only when she takes notice of you and loudly exits the shallows 5 feet away are you snapped back to reality. You instantly realize two things. First off, that was a huge fish...whatever the hell it was. Second, you might need to change your pants. You quietly retreat back and wait for the monster to return. within ten minutes you are rewarded as slowly a ghost materializes in front of you and begins lazily sucking in the plant matter that surrounds its watery home. Its large eyes stay alert for whatever that clumsy thing was that interrupted it earlier. Over the next few weeks of vainly casting to it and reading every website you can on fishing for Grass Carp you learn that unless you want to snag this fish (you do not, because not only are you a rugged outdoors man you are a sportsman to boot. You are John Geirach in a camouflage tee shirt.) a serious change in equipment is needed.

This is going to take some time. This is going to be fun.

But that was last year, you were a fool then. Today you have a longer leader and a box of mayfly dries and poppers you masterfully manipulated to look like a clump of grass (you cut the rubber legs off), The first few times you were here this year there was no sign of the fish and this worries you. Immensely. You stand 20 feet back from the pond and wait, eyes trained like a chubby Heron, you scan the shallows and as the time passes you start to get nervous. Was the winter too hard on in the pond this year? Was there not enough food? Where is this darn fish? Just as you are about to go knock on the owners door and casually bring up the Carp you see it, the familiar disturbances on the edge of the water. The outline is bigger this year so you suppose that the winter, one of the mildest ones you remember, must have been great in the pond. You remind yourself to stop being so panicky and jumping to conclusions. It's time for action.

The fish is feeding on about 60 feet away and is slurping down gobs of moss as you make a circular route on the downside of the dam. You stop about 20 feet away from where you last saw the behemoth and slowly creep up to the top of the dam and look over. Where are you fish? For a few seconds you can't find her and you feel the familiar feelings of last year swelling in you. Should you have crawled up? No! There she is! Ten feet down from where she was last spotted. You roll onto your back and and quickly tie on a green popper. You double check the knot, peel off twenty feet of line, and roll over. The pulse in your ears is threatening to annoy you so you force yourself to take two deep breaths and calm, you can't cast if you can't focus. As you knee walk to within the twenty feet you decided to try from you keep yor profile as low as possible, even tucking the 9 foot fly rod under your arm and jutting behind you. The fish is moving back towards you now and you realize its time to cast. One quick false cast you let the popper sail to 5 feet from where she seems to be going. The plop is satisfying and didn't seem to spook her. She is still swimming lazily toward you. Theres that pulse again and you are trying so hard to look both at the tiny popper and the fish at the same time that you wonder if you are cross eyed at the moment. And then her mouth opens and the space that was once occupied by your fly is now mysteriously vacant. You are dumbfounded, and it takes you a full second to set the hook and when you do the return to reality is a quick one. The line burns off the reel so quickly as the fish realizes something is wrong and decides it is time to leave. For a few seconds you palm the reel because you have determined that the drag on the reel is not at all adequate. For that short time you picture the glory, the pictures and the awesome blog post this moment is going to make. And then the line is slack. You are moderately sure your brain has gone slack as well. You suddenly remember how odd you must look sitting on your knees by the water right now. You also are noticing that you are hungry and that barbeque sounds really good.

You force yourself to stand up and walk away but right before you lose sight of the pond you turn and give a subtle nod "See ya tommorow"

You need to stop talking to fish. Weirdo

[ozark trout fisher]

I enjoyed it...The best fish stories always seem to be about the ones that got away, don't they?

[Addicted to Creeks]

i sure hope so,..i got a lot more of those

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

Had me sucked in. "hook, line and sinker, I took it."

[flyrodman]

I enjoyed it, I had an extremely similar experience with a grass carp.

[Addicted to Creeks]

thanks for the replies guys.... I have a bad habit of sitting down and writing something in one sitting and going back over it later to edit so my grammar is weak

[ozark trout fisher]

Yeah, I don't usually edit my blog entries either until about a week later when someone complains about all the grammatical and spelling errors, so I wouldn't worry about it...