Excellent photographer and all around good guy Hollis Bennett visited us on Beaver Island this summer. On day one I guided Hollis into his first couple Beaver Island carp. On day two Hollis put down the fly rod and picked-up his camera while Steve and I fished. The results were a couple carp in the net and a bunch of kick-ass shots.
This summer our very own Steve Martinez shot a show with Jordan Browne from Michigan Out of Doors. The show does a good job of showing what carp fishing on Beaver Island is like, with Steve doing a great job explaining just what is going on. I especially liked the shots of the clear water and very shallow fish.
During the recent outing with Lance and Lou from Outcast Anglers we got into two days of awesome trailers, as I mentioned a few posts back. On each day we had the chance to put a dozen to twenty casts on two different trailers that were just rooten’ away.
On both occasions I kept moving the boat closer, to the point that we could see exactly where the fly was settling in relation to the carp. Finally both carp jumped on the fly like it was the bast thing they had ever seen, but only when the fly was put within six inches exactly in front of their nose.
Both carp were dark and as I’ve mentioned (Carp Yin and Yang) in the past, dark carp are much less observant and your presentation has to be spot on. If a tailing carp simply keeps tailing after you’ve put the fly past, don’t even think for a minute that it’s not interested, it just hasn’t seen your fly. If a tailing fish sees your fly it will react, it may not eat but it will always stop tailing and will usually move toward the fly for a better look.
A few days ago I had a father and son team for their first fishing trip to Beaver Island. Carp are tough enough to begin with but they started the trip new to fly fishing. The first morning we worked on casting without a fly on the rod for over an hour.
Both were great guys with good natural abilities and they learned and built their skills quickly. On the second day we were blessed with fat calm conditions and hundreds of tailing carp. Better yet the carp were both mellow and eager to eat anything available.
They both landed their first carp on the fly within a half hour of each other, it was really cool.
