Carpe Caprio

The pressure for me to fish is on.  Fontinalis Rising, had agreed to run the quest, and it was on me to fish it.  Thirty days of fishing.  I fish alone during the week.  I don’t mind it, in fact I prefer it, but when the weekend comes…  Well it’s nice to get an odd reply to my equally odd, random (or unintelligible) shouts and grunts.  I actually look forward to it.  Weekends themselves are a blessing and a curse too.  I am still getting used to having them, so every one of them is an unbound blank set of pages gasping for content. Yet the bitter curse comes in the form of inevitable lonesome wanderings, after every invitation drifts away unanswered. This weekend seemed to be no different. There are several new “Austin-area” fly anglers following me on Twitter, so I offered up an invitation to go and fish somewhere, anywhere that was local.  Texas River Bum himself, was the lone reply after I had all but given up, four hours later.

After a brief exchange of ideas, we settled on Kingsland, the waters of FlyStock.  This was the initial weekend prior to its late March postponement, and I was excited about the chance to fish it with a friend.  Then David suggests something that doesn’t seem sane.  He wants to video it.  Me, specifically.  The problem with that is, when I bring a camera out intent on taking pictures of fish I will catch, I get skunked.  This guy wants to bring not one, but TWO cameras out, v i d e o  c a m e r a s.  It also crossed my mind that the last time he and I trudged out with the idea of getting TRB content, I broke a fly rod.  It also weighed on me that, so far in my quest for thirty days, I have yet to be skunked and, I really wanted a carp. Overall it seemed that the forecast was, smelly with a chance at rod damage.

Then again, the whole concept was intriguing, and my ego escaped its cage and accepted.  The Llano has never been particularly kind to me, and with the late start, it seemed I was likely cursed. I ignored the petty details, as my day was looking up.  The soldier never rides into battle depressed and sure of defeat, less he fulfills his own prophecy, and thus I rode optimistic to the Llano River in my trusty battle-wagon.  Upon arrival, I gasped at the flow.  There was plenty of it!  The local flora and fauna was prevalent too, it seemed no worse for wear inspite of La Nina’s seemingly intense desire to burn Texas off the face of the earth.  The sight of so much water lifted my spirits even higher as I cast out towards the shady ledges in random pools, changing flies often until I spied a pod of cruising carp. It was time to carpe caprio, seize the carp! Switching flies, I sight-cast to one particular fish’s last known area.  Just as the wind died down, one carp broke away and attacked it, fish on!

After a few minutes of great fight action, I had today’s trophy in hand.

Given my history on that water, this day was en fuego.  Two new species for the list, some really good Guads, a decent bass and a fruitless high stick nymphing for a drum.

Lord, this day was good.  When it was over, I felt relaxed an satisfied.  That, is the surest sign of a good productive day on the river by far; theraputic satisfaction.  Keep an eye out on OnBugIsFake.com and enter the contest by clicking this link.

See you downstream!