A few days ago I was reading the fiberglass manifesto about the importance of different polarized lenses colors and i have to say that Cameron hit it spot on. great article, he explains it about as good as I've heard
Give it a read.
Been a while, But things have been crazy here at the World Wide headquarters of Fishgazm. Big things are coming this year and i will make sure to keep you all informed. I just wrapped up my Beaver Island carp and Smallmouth season and like always It was another great season, plenty of carp. plenty of smallmouth. plenty of happy customers.
Now its a little family time maybe some camping, of course a lot of fishing and maybe a beer or two. Then its time for salmon fishing, I have heard a few rumors of a king sighting here and there so me and my boy might go look for a couple. since I've been home it has rained pretty steady so a trip to the river is in order, Mousing and river smallmouth are on the go so plenty of things to do and very little time to do them all.
Here are just a few highlights from this summer on Beaver
I just returned from Beaver Island, Michigan. It was a last-minute thing, where the frequent flier mile gods smiled upon me and more importantly, my wife and mother of our 2 very little boys smiled upon me and gave me the go-ahead. Thanks Honey! It was a great trip.
Starting from Santa Cruz, it was a couple of plane changes, rental car, and sweet 20 minute puddle jumper flight over to Beaver Island. Michigan is so alive and green in the summer, so once I touched down in Traverse City, it was all good. Beaver Island itself is a beautiful wooded island with white sand beaches, clear water, friendly people, and an infestation of 20 lb. plus carp. I fished withIndigo Guide Service, where guides Kevin Morlock and Steve Martinez know how to put you on carp. The whole thing was put together by carptrip.com, and included guiding, food, and housing, all of which were excellent.
The carp fishing here is a bit like bluegill fishing in that they are abundant, the main difference being that they are about 50 times as big as bluegill and 50 times harder to catch. Heck the carp were so plentiful this time of year, they would even be cruising around the docks when we returned in the evening. I took advantage of that as well as the fact that the sun sets after 9 PM to partake of some dock fishing. Guide Steve Martinez has caught a slew of carp off the docks, and I came close but no cigar to a toad shortly before my plane was to leave on the last morning (of course that won't bug me for the next month...).
The Beaver Island carp experience is unique. In a nutshell, 1-2 fishermen and one guide pile into Steve or Kevin's well-equipped boats at the civilized hour of 9 AM on a bright sunny day and head out of the harbor. A 20 minute boat ride takes us out to one of the many islands in the archipelago. The water is clear and the bottom rises to about 5 feet deep as we shut off the motor and start rowing/drifting closer to the islands and flats where the carp are congregating. Soon we start to notice the large dark shapes under water cruising by. As we approach they become more vivid as well as plentiful and soon we're surrounded by hundreds of carp over 15 lbs. There are no small carp here.
The Approach. Caribbean in Michigan.
It was unbelievable. There were large spawning carp dogpiles going berserk in a foot or less of water while the non-spawning carp were cruising all around. They definitely seem to be more active and less guarded during the spawn.
My boatmate, Evan, a skilled fly fisher from St. Louis, was up first, and I watched what he did as well as learned from Kevin directing him on what he needed to do to get his fly in front of the carp. Once it was my turn I started warming up on the 8-weight rod Kevin set me up with. I had never casted a rod larger than my 7 weight so I wanted to practice. Well, after a couple practice flogs, I started tossing a few casts in front of the carp, and a few minutes in I was rewarded with my first fly-caught carp ever. We all watched him follow and suck up the fly clear as day 25 feet from the boat in 3 feet of water. The line came tight as I was slowly working the fly in front of him and there he was. He bolted for mainland Michigan and the reel started spinning. I was even trying to horse him a little bit and he was still into the backing pretty quick. After a couple minutes I had him back on the fly line, and after a couple more, he was in the net.
First Carp Evah! He liked me, note him trying to spawn with my arm.
Very cool. Actually my mind was blown. These are huge freshwater fish, sight fished in clear water, that will take you into your backing almost every time, all in mainland USA. How cool is that? And a bunch of firsts for me. First fly caught carp, biggest fish I've ever caught, and my first fish to ever run me into the backing. Kevin eyeballed my fish at 18 lbs, which at the moment I thought was the biggest fish the world had ever seen, but he offhandedly mentioned that it was a below-average weight fish. So the carp here are huge. And Kevin said their average fish size has been increasing every year as the carp gorge on the invasive great lakes Goby.
Evan's first fish, the one in the above video, weighing in at 26 lbs.
We continued fishing from the boat till lunch and caught a few more. The wind picked up so we ran back to Beaver Island for some beach fishing. While boat fishing is like fishing in an aquarium, with an elevated casting platform, clear water, and oodles of fish all around you, the beach fishing here is a bit more of solo man hunting fish. The carp here like warm wind-driven surface water, so they concentrate on windblown shorelines where the waves buffet the shoreline and the water clouds up as a result. However, it's still clear enough to see plenty of fish once your eyes adjust to picking out the shapes. The trick is to find a carp cruising path and to post up in the waves and cast to takers as they pass by. I hooked up to one carp this way, but he popped off less than a minute into the fight, probably due to a dull hook, since I had snagged the bottom a few times in the casts beforehand. I continued to take shots at a steady procession of fish after that, but my crude carp skills did not win me another fish. So after a spell of that, Kevin had me change tactics and start casting an unweighted rust-orange tarpon toad at a pod of sunbathers, picking around the edges. While I was not sure if it was going to work out, given what I had heard about sunbathers being hard to catch, I gave it a serious go, popping the fly on their noses from 30 feet away as best I could. Shockingly, after about 15 minutes, I popped one carp almost on the head and he ate. How cool is that? He ran out of the cove but alas popped off within 15 seconds. This time I checked out my hook immediately and the dang thing had a point that was dull and bent backward. So, another lesson learned to check my hooks after snagging. Either way, I was stoked that some fish was actually fool enough to fall for my hack presentations.
One off the beach!
Day 1's score for me was 2 caught fish from the boat and 2 fish lost from the beach. More importantly, I learned a ton of new skills to apply to my carp fishing back home. Kevin's repeated but patient coaching was drilling into my ears "Cast ahead of him, strip strip strip, STOP, work it, work it!" and repeat. Once I started to figure out where the fly was in 3 dimensions I started to be able to internalize his instructions and move the fly as well as stop it right where he wanted me to with less instruction each passing hour. I also learned how to cast better in the wind. Wind is a reality up there. It's not crazy windy but it's often a presence so I learned some strategies to cast into, across, and with the wind. Guide Steve Martinez had great advice that really worked for reasons I still don't quite understand. He said that when casting into the wind to backcast hard and then forward cast easy. Well, that seems to work. I'm guessing because you load the rod so hard with the backcast that you don't need to push as hard on the forward cast because the extra rod flex you created on the backcast returns you more line speed. Plus, if you don't push your forward cast so hard, your stroke stays smoother, keeping your loop tight. For whatever reason, it worked. Thanks Steve!
Evan's second fish of the day.
Day 2 and 3 were similar to the first day, with great boat and beach fishing, and similar fish quantities. The highlight for me on Day 2 was being on the beach stalking a carp that Kevin described as "the biggest carp I've ever seen", which means something when Kevin says that. It looked like a shark swimming around. Kevin eyeballed it at about 55 lbs. It looked twice as long as all the 20 lb carp around it, so I believe him. The world record fly-caught common carp is apparently 42 lbs, and Kevin is pretty sure they've already caught larger carp than that several times. And he says the carp are still getting bigger. Kevin had me stalking and casting to this fish for 30 minutes as it circulated around the pool/flat near the beach. It was a bit nerve-wracking to cast to a singular carp like this, especially with a hack like me pulling the trigger. I tried to give the rod to Kevin so a pro could take shots at the fish but he said "not a chance." Although I learned a lot, I think I aged several years trying to get a well-presented fly to that fish without letting Kevin down. While we didn't outright spook it, we didn't get it to eat, and Carpasaurus eventually moseyed out of range.
Stalking Carpasaurus.
One other note is that this place is thick with smallmouth. They are like little suicidal maniacs that will dart out and grab your fly while you are chasing carp. We were joking about these "trash fish" that were grabbing our flies. Compared to a 20 lb. carp a 2 lb. smallmouth (although there are much bigger ones here) feels like a bluegill, but they sure could provide a lot of fast action once they're in season up there, which they were not while we were there.
Good luck snakes we see most mornings leaving the dock.
And a butterfly on a beach fishing day.
Evan from Feather Craft set up this trip and we stayed at the comfortable Fisherman's house right in town across the street from the beautiful harbor. Evan is a class act and put together a great trip. Cameron from The Fiberglass Manifesto also came and was a great guy to hang out with. I would fish with them again in a heartbeat. Both of these guys were excellent fishermen and I learned a lot from them a well as from Kevin and Steve.
Kevin hard at work!
Kevin is very passionate about conservation and improving the fishery in the Michigan Upper Peninsula. He maintains that, properly managed, Michigan would be the "Alaska of the Lower 48." And I believe him. The carp are a good example. Nobody fishes for them and nobody eats them, so they are growing to huge proportions. If the other gamefish in the lake were minimally harvested I believe the Smallmouth and others would thrive and grow even larger and more abundant than they are. The Smallmouth are just starting to bounce back up there. They are quite large but there aren't lots of them. Official tallies have just 600 adults in the Beaver Island Archipelago. That's only 120 5-fish limits, so they could be wiped out in a week of catch and keep in-season fishing (July and August), not to mention the poaching that goes on. If they were on strict catch and release I think this resource would explode and make Beaver Island even more attractive to fishermen. You can clearly see this with the carp.
These fish are thick and healthy.
And I have to talk about Kevin and Steve from Indigo. They are the visionaries that opened this place up to carp fishing when everyone else was questioning their sanity and why the heck they were bothering with carp instead of fishing for smallmouth. And these guys go the extra mile big-time. They work their asses off on the water to get you lots of good shots at fish, they supply all the flies and gear if you need it, and pick you up and drop you off as well. They also hung out with us for breakfast and all evening, even tying some flies for us. They have a blog post about the trip here. These guys did more than any guide I'm aware of, and they really know carp. Thanks for everything guys.
I recommend that you get your butt to the Beaver... or something like that. Carp are never easy to catch, but I submit that they are a easier to catch there than anyplace else that I know of. The water is clear, the fish are abundant and aggressive, the shots are plentiful, and the guides know how to get your fly in front of the fish, so if you're going to catch carp, this would be the place. You get hundreds of casts per day, and every single cast is to a large carp, something that is not possible in any other carp fishery I'm aware of. So any of those hookups and runs are rippers when they happen. Great for both novice and expert. I'm *definitely* going back next year.
From Spring steelhead to monster Smallmouth and carp,this year would have to be labeled "the year of the outings" what ever your passion is, there's something here for everyone.
The Carp and Smallmouth fishing around Beaver Island is Crazy good in July and The Fiberglass Manifesto is hosting a outing over on the Island in July. Coincidental? I dont think so. Grab your Spot with TFM because spots are filling Quick.
Of all creatures that live in and around rivers and lakes Sculpins seem to be a pretty solid food base for most fish.Around beaver Island in Northern Michigan,lake sculpins are a great target for smallmouth and carp,along with The round goby.This pattern is just he ticket when it comes to any fish that will eat goby s or sculpins, for carp and smallmouth I would tie this with very little or no flash at all, for steelhead I will add 6 or so strands of copper flashabou and swing it. I call it the Frankenstein Sculpin,because of the features of different sculpin patterns wrapped into one.
In only Six short months I will be cruising the flats of Beaver Island, hunting for its giant carp and Smallmouth and though I seldom get ready for any season earlier than a few day before, some unwanted free time has allowed me to really start getting stocked up on flys. With all my steelhead flys tied I figured I would start my carp and smallmouth boxes.Here is one that i am really excited about its mottled look and sculpin head this will certainly take it to the carp and smallies up on the Island.
carpa grande
Hook-Mustad c52s
Head-Small sculpin helmet
Tail- two different colored marabou
Body- two different Ice dub and mallard flank
Forward fin-Small mallard flank
When tying this pattern after tying in tail start with 2 small clumps of dubbing then Palmer mallard flank then add another 2 clumps of off colored or darker dubbing then more mallard this will add to the mottled look of this fly, making dubbing clumps larger as you go further.
Well we have arrived at the eve of another great year, man how time flys! I've met a ton of cool people this year,some will become lifelong friends and others will be folks that i may only see once a year but that's whats so cool about this job,you meet a lot of great people. Looking back on the year and thinking of all the fish that have been caught it can really be humbling to think that people will travel hundreds if not thousands of miles and spend hundreds of dollars to spend what could there only vacation with goofy ass me, to all of those folks that have fished with me a very heart felt Thank You. I really look forward to this following year, more cool people more awesome fish and maybe even a few more road trips to fish.
What do fishing guides do in the winter when their not working?....FISH what the hell else would we do? Sure there's honey to do list to take care of from months of fishing everyday, but the winter is where we get to fish and try some new fly patterns out. The pattern below is called a Zonkora, I am not sure who created it, I have heard that Ray Schmidt started tying this pattern after a trip from Argentina. I know that I have caught alot of smallmouth on this little gem around Beaver Island, Carp, Salmon and Northern Pike even like this fly. where this pattern really takes charge is Brown Trout, don't ask me why, but I have turned some bleak days around when I tied this pattern on. the color combo shown are my best here in West Michigan. I have tied this fly with white bunny and body leaving the orange tail and swung it for steelhead with good results, either way It doesn't matter. Hard to question something when it works so good.
Fishing jigs for trout and steelhead isn't a new tactic,this style of fishing has been around for a long time.floating brightly colored jigs under floats or dead drifting thru runs is a deadly presentation.
Gabe hillbrand from Hillbrand tackle has taken jigs to a new level and his creativity and design of these works of art shows with the results after a day of fishing them.. I have been fishing with Gabes jigs for awhile now for carp,smallmouth ,King salmon and steelhead. For the next few weeks we will dive in to different styles and concepts of fishing these jigs.
the Swamp donkey is without a doubt one of my favorites,i have caught salmon,Steelhead,carp,smallmouth and northern pike on this pattern so far. fishing this jig with erratic motion has been my best technique to date for steelhead but i have been back bouncing this jig on a straight downstream presentation and have gotten bit. for carp and smallmouth-dragging this along the bottom mimicking a goby or crayfish has been deadly for my non-fly fishing clients on Beaver Island.
