Month of the Carp?

Landing a carp, which hit a Rebel Bluegill. Photo by Joe Sills.

In a lifetime of fishing all over the country, I've caught four carp on artificial lures. Three of those have been in the past few weeks. As noted in a previous blog, I caught grass carp on back-to-back days from two different lakes in Alabama earlier this month. Both were hooked in the mouth, and one hit a Rebel Bluegill crankbait, while the other attacked a Pop-R.

The Rebel Bluegill did the job again last week at Lake Powell. While fishing way up the San Juan River arm of the lake and catching mostly smallish smallmouths, I about had the rod snatched out of my hand from a strike, and at first I thought I'd hooked a seriously big largemouth or smallmouth. After a few minutes, though, I got the fish close enough to see it in the clear water and realized that yet another carp had grabbed a lure. Eventually I got the powerful fish close enough to get a hand beneath it's belly and land it.

From looking at the large unusual and unevenly distributed scales on the side of the fish and comparing photos to photos online, I'm almost positive it was a mirror carp. It definitely wasn't a grass carp, like the two from Alabama, so I got to add it to my 2015 species list. Now I just need a common carp to complete a "slam" of the most common carp species for this year.

This trip's smallmouths were also the first of this year for me. With April winding down, the count for '15 is at 16.

Wild West Preview

The more I look back at my photos from last week's Lake Powell adventure with St. Croix Rod, the more I'm struck by the scenery around the lake. We did a "picture show" last night, putting images on the big screen at home, and it was fun showing my family some of what was around me in the houseboat and in areas I got to fish.

Looking at those big western landscapes also adds to my excitement about the Rebel Trout Trek, the trip Asher and I will be taking this summer. Although we won't be at Lake Powell or anywhere that looks quite like that, for that matter, we will be fishing in many classic Wild West settings, with ultra-clear water, open views and massive rock formations. Obviously, I look forward to seeing all of that and to fishing acclaimed trout waters, but I also look forward to trying to capture some of the grandeur in photos to share.

I also realized the other day that the trip is less than three months away. It seemed like forever when I first started planning but time is passing pretty quickly. Thankfully, many plans are already in place.
I hope you'll keep up with preparation and travel through the summer. I believe it's going to be a great adventure! As soon as I know details about where things will be posted, I'll pass them along.

Tumbleweed Crappie

Tumbleweed, to me, has always been restricted to cowboy music and Western movies. In Utah, tumbleweed is real, and at Lake Powell, it plays an important part in the fishing equation. There maybe various kinds of tumbleweed. I'm not sure. However, the stuff around Lake Powell, which is actually I kind of thistle, I think, breaks off and "tumbles," in the wind or down the hill, which means it collects along the lake's edge, usually in the backs of pockets, and the fish love the cover it offers.

From a practical standpoint, dropping a jig between tumbleweed clusters or casting to such an edge is little different from fishing around other kinds of vegetation in other parts of the country. From a western adventure standpoint, though, the simple fact that we were fishing around tumbleweed added to the whole canyon thing and only added to the fun factor.

Of course, it didn't hurt that the fish in those areas were big, boldly marked black crappie that were willing to eat our jigs!

Spectacular Lake Powell

Sitting at the boat dock at Lake Powell Marina. Just returned by houseboat from 30 miles up the lake, where I've spent the past few days with a great crew from St. Croix Rod and several other writers.

No ATT service where we were, or I would have posted along the way, although in truth, it's a pretty tough task to even begin to convey how how cool the setting was, with half a dozen deluxe houseboats beached beneath canyon walls. Fishing
days started by stepping off the houseboats, into bass boats. Days ended with big meals and time around a big campfire.

Fishing action was fast, sometimes furious, with smallmouth bass being the main attraction, and in truth exploring the lake would have been worth it on its own if we hadn't caught a fish. I'll talk more about those things in future posts, though.

posted from Bloggeroid

Lake Powell Bound

Long day of travel today, but with quite the final destination. This week I'll be fishing Lake Powell, a canyon lake along the Colorado River that is just upstream of the Grand Canyon and has similar topography. From the photos I've seen, the scenery is spectacular and unlike any other lake I've ever fished.

I left home dark and early to drive a couple of hours to the Atlanta airport. A little after 9:00 I hopped on a plane to fly to Phoenix. That was a four-hour flight and the biggest part of the journey. At the moment I'm hanging out in in the Phoenix airport. I'll hop on a prop plane in a few hours to make a short flight north to Page, Arizona, probably with most of the rest of the group on the trip, and from there we'll ride in some sort of shuttle to the lake.

Upon arriving at Lake Powell Resorts, though, we still have one more ride to take before we're fully there. We should be able to settle as we ride, though, I suppose, because we are staying on houseboats somewhere out on the lake. Of course, I might not care about setting in at that point. I'll likely want to be on the front deck taking in the scenery and taking photos!

No wifi, from what I understand, so I'll be limited to phone posts. Nevertheless, I'll do my best to keep this page and my Jeff Samsel Fishing Facebook page updated.

Stay tuned!