I recently got a flood of hardcore fish porn from a bevy of self styled male fashion models, each insistent that their freshly minted Singlebarbed headpiece freed them of drooping backcasts, societal inhibitions, and idol worship …
The fabled carp slayer John Montana and his sidekick Dr. Cane, who risked his micrometer-like fingers to heft great gobs of Cyprinid.
I mentioned the rod in the background, as well as its funny color and fossil fuel based origins, and he deftly acknowledged it was a “plastic” rod and he was unashamed to be caught slumming, given that he was holding dripping flesh and I wasn’t …
… which made me shut up and blush profusely …
Ed Zern called it, “The Thrill That Comes Once in a Lifetime,” the discovery that Yaller Bruisers have a weakness for spectral dubbing …
Given we haven’t seen much fish flesh on these pages or anywhere else in the last year, I just had to indulge myself.
Hoping success would rub off, naturally.
I’m not sure those are fish. I’m pretty sure that last picture is of some kind of prototype single man submarine…likely of Chinese origin.
Still lovely catches however.
I still wonder why carp are relatively easy to catch on a fly in the US, and much less so overhere. I’ve only ever caught one, but I can’t count the number of times I tried.
Nice submarines!
Odd that he’s not showing his face.
I’ve got to find one of those fish scale neckerchiefs!
Ask Dr. Cane if they are “easy” to catch! They might appear easy out here because we have so many targets, but man…carp can be frustrating.
For the record KB, every fish i caught that day succumbed to a fly coated in Free Range Dubbing…the 25lb bruiser ate your rust variant. And yes, i think it is funny that Dr. Cane fishes plastic for Carp. Not that i blame him…who wants kindling?
Carperkerchiefs?
It’s ok John, its easy to confuse the relative ease of catching when one peruses your iphoto library.
P.S. My carp box has now been fully “free ranged” and I couldn’t be happier with the results.
There ain’t nothing EASY about catching carp on a fly in the Big C, unless you’re carp ninja John Montana (the man has sixth, seventh and eigth senses when it comes to carp). Whether it’s the silently (or trying to) stalk the greased marbles to baseball sized rocks, the awful glare/water clarity, or the fact that a sub-like carp is nearly invisible in more than a foot of water, just SEEING them and getting close enough to cast is tough.
Then you have to present a fly 6 inches or so in front of their noses (the have really lousy eyesight) without spooking them.
Then you have to somehow detect the take (a carp can inhale and spit a fly in under a second, from over a foot away), which without a double is the VERY HARDEST PART.
And then you have to hope the fish doesn’t bury itself in a weedbed.
There’s NOTHING easy about it!
…except getting them to eat the fly if it’s tied with FREE RANGE DUBBING : )
(have we kissed your free range butt enough, Keith?)
You fellows have created a monster – I’ve got free hats galore as my head is now too big to fit any of them!
Who doesn’t have one yet?
A singlebarbed lid? In! I got a look at Dr. Canes this past weekend.
When are you coming north kb? I would love to put you on some flats.