We've got some pretty good sized carp in the upper Mississippi here. When I worked in an office building downtown by the river I used to fish for them over lunch, in addition to smallmouth bass, walleye, etc. The carp were the best fighters, though. A typical carp there was around 30 inches and plump, around 10 to 12 pounds I would guess, with the occasional bigger one. For a challenge we used ultralight spinning gear with 4 pound test. That was a lot of fun. Here's a typical lunch hour carp:
I finally got out for some real fly fishing last weekend, on the real stream that Czech Coulee Creek is based on. The black caddis were really hatching, and the surface bite was good. I landed 3 brook and 12 brown, with one I'd estimate at about 17 inches, the biggest I've caught there. At the moment I've got some blue dun hackles soaking in black dye to try to get a shade closer to those caddis for next time. It's so much easier in the game to just click "darker"....
Tight lines,
Paul
