Arizona Fly Fishing: Brownlining

Spent a beautiful Saturday morning hitting some of the local Phoenix water with a couple good buddies. I returned to the spot I had fished last weekend where only a small bass came to hand and a large carp mocked me after spitting my fly. My goal was to rectify the situation.

As stated in the last post, this area has numerous ponds that contain the usual suspects of bluegill and bass, along with some assorted carp and koi. I found success in the first pond and solidly hooked up with a white koi (I believe). The tug on the end of my fly line was heavy and after 5 or 10 minutes, the white ghost came to the net. This was my first roughfish brought to hand and it gave a good workout to the 5 weight.

We kept working the pond, but the barking dogs in the yards behind us became too annoying and we switched over to another stretch of water. Jake and I continued to fish together and spotted several feeding bass and carp out in front of us. With a well presented wooly bugger, Jake latched into the big fish of the day. A huge carp began taking line and after Jake played him for about 15 minutes, the fish began to tire. As the fish came closer to shore, it appeared to be ready to be netted, but as soon as it reached the surface it took one look at us, bolted, and snapped the line.

We kept fishing and I spotted a brighter orange fish tailing in the shallow water in the middle of the pond. I cast ahead of the feeding fish and watched as the dancing green simi-seal leech was sucked into the vacuum cleaner of a mouth. Fish on and the line raced off the reel. I worked the fish over for a good period of time and Jake helped with the netting although the small trout net did not do us much good.

Again, I am not an expert on carp and which species of fish is which. Any help is greatly appreciated. I will say that this fish stank like nothing I have ever smelled before. Instead of a fish stink, it smelled like something from the bottom of a dumpster out back of a Chinese restaurant.  It was so bad, that I switched my rig and did not attempt to catch another carp all day.

My buddy Jason was working a separate pond and found a big Koi willing to take his fly. After a long fight that took him halfway around the pond, this big boy finally conceded.

There were a few other hookups, but the bass bite was slow. We saw a few cruisers but nothing that we were throwing appeared to peak any interest. I got one more tug and found a feisty bluegill on the other end. All the fish caught today came on a green simi-seal bugger with a orange glass bead. Between the geese poop and barking dogs, the area lacks a certain pristine beauty when compared to the trout streams to the north. On the same note, I am not complaining about a fish on the end of my line, especially one that takes line off the reel.

Any insight into what type of fish I was catching is greatly appreciated…