I gotta work on my hookset

I left mid-morning today to fish the San Gabriel river. Most of this week had been cold and drizzly and today was turning out to be a nice day with highs expected in the 60s.

The intention of this outing was to catch some carp on the fly. The water was cold but I did find lots of carp along the shoreline of a large pool that looked to be feeding. I had three takes and couldn't get a good hookset. Maybe the month away from the fly rod was to blame. My casts were also horrible. Still, I was finally able to get a good hookset on a carp, fought him for a bit and my leader broke at the knot to the fly. Sheesh!

I traveled up to the shallow flats and stood there for a bit until the carp got comfortable and did a few drifts with one pick up and again I screwed up the hookset!

Eventually, I headed back out and paddled the pool with the kayak to sneak up on a whole school of carp feeding and dropped my fly in front of them and got a solid hookup! Once I got the carp on the reel and tightened up drag it took me for a sleigh ride around the pool. After he gave up and I released him, I paddled back and left.

I didn't take my camera today due to the fact that the battery was dead. I wanted to do some night fishing tonight but am too tired. Instead, I'm going to rest up and fish for bass tomorrow on Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin.