Delaware Bones.

Two weeks of searching and I finally found some golden bones in the state of Delaware. The water is situated right off the Delaware Chesapeake Canal and less than a mile from the saltwater of Delaware Bay. Google Maps and a little direction from Doug at White Clay Outfitters led me there. The lake is quite large and is off the beaten path. A rugged 4-wheel drive high clearance road leads to the water and encircles much of it, but thats all the access it really gives. There are no paths or trails that lead into the water. So once you get in, you are stuck literally in the water and must stalk your quarry carefully. Visibility is low, so you are sight casting to carp that are extremely close to you and the lack of a higher vantage point really throws a spin on things. It was a fun game to play. There aren't any monsters but bones are bones.

Good Place To Park, The Hole In Front Is 1.5 ft. Deep.

First Carp I Saw In Two Weeks Took The Damsel On The First Cast.

No Bank + No Net = No Landing Area

A Splash In The Face and Carp Numero Uno Said, Hasta La Vista.

I Was Pumped, Despite Defeat, & The Multi Took Some Weeds.

Popper Dropper With A Sucker Spawn Does The Job Too.

Skinny Bones.

I Wet Waded For 5 Hours Through This.

The Carp Liked Being In The Thick of Things, Interesting Dilemma.

See His Back?

Small Bass Kept Getting In The Way.

Damsel Doing Work.

The Carp Face.

Mudding Carp & One Muddy Truck.

Flawless Victory!

I arrived at the canal at 7:30 with high hopes. It was slightly overcast and humid as all hell, I was the only person there…which was a first. I started to see carp much earlier during my walk down the canal path than I usually did, and they were mudding too. I showed my fly to a half dozen fish…I’d say 8-10lb range, just a few looks and follows. I made my way into prime carp territory and began to see fish cruising slowly around weaving in and out of the weeds. I made a few casts, and since the fish were shoaling it only took one to get spooked and all hope was lost…

I continued walking down the path scanning the water…and I don’t know why, but I turned around and out of the gloom came a monster carp. It was headed towards shore and I quickly put my fly in between. As my fly slowly sank the carp didn’t change direction like they usually do, avoiding the fly, instead it just kept coming and opened its mouth and sucked in the damsel…

During this moment I had an out of body experience, haha. It was like I was watching myself in a dream. Four months of getting my ego smashed by these fish was finally a distant memory.

I set the hook, and the fish was instantly on the other side of the canal trying to get into a logjam. Mind you I’m using my 5wt. with 3x tippet, I put all the pressure I possibly could on this fish to stop him, I never had a fish pull so hard…it was actually scary. The fish finally changed its mind about the logjam and took off horizontally. It was insane how fast this fish was moving, I could definitely tell that this fish didn’t get hooked too often. During it’s running around, a pile of weeds had accumulated on my leader making it extremely difficult to put adequate pressure on the fish in order to direct it my way. Not wanting to lose the fish, I jumped over the poison thicket in front of me into the canal to clean off my leader. The fight overall may have lasted 20-30 minutes, I have no recollection of time…I was too overcome with adrenaline to comprehend anything except how I was going to land the fish. I finally tired the fish out to the point where I could get it close to me without another explosive run out to the middle of the canal, and threw my arms around the fish and drug it close to the bank. I set up my camera on auto capture and took a few shots. Then I realized someone who was jogging was slowing up to see what I was doing waist deep in the canal…I had him snap a picture.

Go Time!

Now Thats A Thick Fish...

3x MaxKnot is the shit...

What A Freakin' Fish!

M O N E Y...

I can’t even begin to describe the feeling I have, not only catching one of the infamous canal carp, but one of that caliber...Haha, two personal best carp in less than a week...I definitely shattered my 12lb record from Saturday. I need to put down the fly rod…

Carp Lake X Slay Fest Round 2

I decided to go back to the carp pond early Thursday morning to test if my new fly creation that I used the previous week still held their interest. Low and behold it did, I don’t know how many fish I caught but I did land a few nice fish. There’s something about this fly that they just can’t resist.

Nice Fish

Backing Again...

First Mirror Carp From Lake X

One Thick Fish

Crunch Time

Another Beauty

After the mornings fishing I’d lost all of my creations and ran out of 3x tippit, I stopped in at the Orvis shop on my way home and picked up some materials and the most expensive spool of tippet I'd ever purchased…MaxKnot…it was all they had left. I tied a few flies once I got home and then decided to try my luck with the infamous Canal Carp. I fished the canal from 5:30 until 8:00 and missed two takes, this was the closest I’d ever come to catching one of these insanely smart fish. I was pleased with their interest in my new fly overall and decided to go back early in the morning to try my luck.

Arsenal

Defeated Again...

I Need A Spey Rod.

Steelhead on the Dry.

kind of a big deal from ryan peterson on Vimeo.

Granted, I live no where near suitable spey water, I just want to get a thrill out of spey casting.

Walk of Shame.

Gives You An Idea of the Water Quality.

I went for a run the other day down a highway by my apartment and discovered a small stream nearby. I stopped running and peered over into the slow dirty stream and saw a huge largemouth cruising down under the bridge. That was all I really needed to see and I anticipated heading back to catch some fish. Finally, a decent spot for some fun. A few days later I woke up at dawn and decided to walk down to the stream. The mile long walk along the highway wasn't too bad on the way there. I was pumped and amused by the looks on commuters faces as they passed by. Little did I know, but the walk back wouldn't be so fun.

Watch Your Step, or Risk Your Leg.

Someone Misplaced This.

As I bushwacked down under the bridge I hoped I wouldn't come across another homeless person, like my last excursion. Thankfully, I didn't and after a few moments my first cast produced. To my surprise, it was a small pickerel. I was ecstatic that I found a decent spot so close to my apartment. On my next cast, a much larger pickerel, easily over 20 inches exploded on my woolly bugger from under a brush pile. My line went limp as I set the hook. He had easily sliced right through my 3x. I brushed it off, and thought that it was just because I didn't check my tippet after the last fish. I tied on another fly, a much larger pattern. I was only going after the big guns now. A few casts later, in a deeper hole, another leviathan came out to play and once again my tippet was cut clean. I brushed it off again, cut off that silly piece of tippet, and tied another large streamer pattern straight to the butt section of my leader. 

I Had High Hopes After Landing This Guy.

My, What Big Teeth You Have.

A Broken Loop Revealed How Dirty My Line Is.

Too Much Brownlining.

I thought there was no way that another pickerel could cut through what was easily 15-20 pound test, but I was wrong. I lost another one of my favorite streamers. It fell victim to the blade like teeth of these voracious predators. After fumbling around the muddy banks, wading through forests of poison ivy, and sinking feet into mud, I called it quits. Of course this was after, I had lost yet another large pickerel (but not my fly) and the loop connection on my sharkskin broke. I left the stream, made my way up to the highway, and began the walk of shame back to the apartment. I was sad, dejected, and covered in mud. With the way my luck went, I am probably covered in poison ivy and deer ticks but that is the last thing on my mind. I am only thinking about a trip to the nearest fly shop, some steel leaders, and some freshly tied pike streamers. Next time, I will be prepared, and it most definitely will be a different story. 

Couldn’t stay away...

The day after I slayed 15+ carp I felt the urge to go back and try my luck. I slept until 1 in the afternoon, and I knew the odds were going to be stacked against me, a cloudless Saturday afternoon, 90+ degrees, in the middle of a city…hmm. I arrived to find the pond abound with activity…of the human sort, small children swimming in the stream that feeds the pond, worm dunkers sitting on lounge chairs with their ice fishing rods propped up on sticks…I figured I’d at least try my luck. I started to walk around the pond and came across a shoal of 20 carp basking in the sun. I made a few casts, I got one look but spooked the majority on later casts. I found a group of three fish slowly making their way towards me, placed a cast…and out of nowhere my fly had disappeared in a flash. A largemouth had ruined my chances at gold…

I continued around the pond and spotted a single large fish with his head behind a small weed clump…I crept into position and took a cast. The cast fell 5 feet short of my mark…I thought it was over, the fish was slowly moving away and I thought it had been spooked. I delivered a second cast as he moved into a clearing in the weed bed. I watched my fly slowly parachute down, and gave it a small twitch. I watched the fish’s attention turn on my fly as it sank behind a weed clump…the fish cruised over, and I watched it's head go down and tail go up…I paused for a second…then set the hook. I was so excited to feel dead weight as the fish exploded into a run.

This day I had my buddy Phil along to watch me do my thing, and I had him carry my net. I usually don’t carry my net out of laziness, haha. My net has a built in scale and I was excited to get a weight on this fish because it was the largest carp I’d ever hooked.

One of a few runs

stalemate...

Come to me...

Victory!

So much for auto focus during an adrenalin rush...12lbs.

Exaggerated Reach...

New Personal Best...

One More

PA vs. DE

After four years of college at the University of Delaware, I graduated. Returning home I spent the summer fishing my favorite home waters with my fingers crossed for an interview. It never came. What came was an offer to teach back in Delaware at a relatively brand new school, so I jumped at the chance and I am extremely excited about it. So I moved back down to Delaware and officially have my own little flat back near my old stomping grounds at UD. Im glad to be in the area but the fishing isn't so great. I am missing the home waters. BIG TIME.

I Miss My Dogs Too.

So I moved to Delaware to teach and my brother moved from Baltimore to the Caribbean to teach. Adam remains in Pennsylvania. This River Is Wild is going to get pretty diversified over the next year. As for me, I need to find some alternative forms of fly fishing. I spent the majority of the day google earthing nearby lakes and ponds hoping to find some golden bones but my day long adventure produced nothing. I ended up heading to one of the nicest streams in Delaware: White Clay Creek. It got me thinking about my home water again so here is a comparison of the quarry and environment.

Pennsylvania: Limestone & Freestone Streams full of native and stocked trout.

Appalachia.

Stocked Brown.

The Bugs.

Wild Brown Stimulator (Adam).

Skinny Water Browns.

Aquashicola Rainbow.

Aquashicola Native.

Delaware: Sandy, Muddy, and Somewhat Freestone Streams full of fallfish, small smallmouth, sunfish and the occasional stocked trout who survived the summer.

Small Smallmouth.

Voracious Sunfish.

Freshly Caught Rope Swing That Went Along With The Homeless Women I Almost Stepped On Hopping Over a Fallen Tree.

Delaware Chubs Fight Hard.

And Are Plentiful.

Delaware Deer.

Heading Back Thinking About All The New Water That Lies Ahead & The Fall Stripers, Steelhead, and Browns That Await.