My fishing partner James and I discussed trout and dry flies as we hiked down the winding rail tracks. The plan was to pick up some cruisers while we walked the tracks, casting hoppers to the dropoff. It was August and our favourite lakes were fishing slowly, so this seemed like a nice change. Where the tracks run along close to the lake, you can sight fish from a fair distance. With the sun over our shoulders we could see clear to bottom. It wasn’t long before I saw a familiar shadow cruising our way. It was too big to be a trout. As it got closer, I realized I had spotted a large carp. Then we spotted four more. As they cruised along the deep edge of the shoal, they occasionally glided into the shallows to dine on some unseen item and, just as gracefully, glided back to the safety of deep water.

James wasted no time at making a nice cast into the deep water. A huge set of of untrout-like lips broke the surface and grabbed that hopper! Next thing I knew, James was into a very angry carp. James’ face wore the look of unfathomable surprise and held tightly to his five-weight rod as the carp ran and pulled most of his backing from his reel. He looked at me as if asking, “What do I do?” But, after about 15 minutes, he brought the beauty 15-pound carp to hand. That afternoon, despite catching a few trout, we spent most of our time stalking these golden bullets. We had been struck by carp fever.

Written by  Dave Allen