Golden Ghost

Carp are sometimes referred to as the "golden ghost". I call them heckuva a lot of fun and a challenge on the fly. I felt like finding some on the San Gabriel river today after such a miserable time a couple of weeks ago.

This time I brought along a new fly pattern I tied that I came up with. I'll post some details on the patten in a separate post. Suffice it to say the pattern is based on the bonefish Gotcha fly with the exception that the body is composed of crawfish orange dubbing and the wing is composed of orange EP 3D Fibers that match the body color. It was the first fly I tied on in the morning.

The weather was cloudy with winds around 10 to 15 mph from the South to Southeast. The water was a bit silty but still fairly clear. I paddled upstream past some rapids and had to position myself in the shallowest parts of the pool to see in the water well enough to sightfish.

After a few casting attempts I finally hooked a 5lb carp. It made some impressive runs. It had the new fly firmly in it's bottom lip. I removed the fly and released the carp.

After repositioning I was able to hookup with a second carp. This one was a jumper! When I finally landed it, it had the fly firmly hooked in the upper lip which is normally how I expect to hook fish with flies in which the hook rides with the point up.

I went up to the flats and found carp all over the place though they were quite spooky and was not able to hookup with any even after switching flies a couple of times. After several showers came through and reduced visibility I headed out.

I was quite happy with the few hours I spent on the river. Particularly with the fact I caught a couple of nice fish and didn't slip and fall on my back.