Beautiful day yesterday for pan fishing. It was a bit windy so I opted for my 5wt Winston WT rather than my usual 3 or 4wts which I like for bluegills etc. They were bitin', 8-10" range, fat and almost as tall as they were long. Caught a bunch, along with some small crappies (6-8") and a few little bitty bass. Just me and this big ol' diamondback water snake out enjoying the day.
So anyway I headed down to what I call the cove which is the end of a channel leading to the culverted earthwork that forms the lake. It's surrounded by trees and lo and behold there were several carp sipping seeds off the top. So I tied on a cottonwood seed fly (they do exist) and laid it out softly and sure enough, SLURP, I had me a carp on the line; I figured him (her?) to be around 30+" which according to my conversion chart would be 30+ pounds. As soon as I had him I started to worry; what will this fish do to my little 5wt, how old is the leader (last year's or probably older), and how am I even gonna land it, since this water is heavily riprapped at a pretty steep angle - no good place to beach a big fish.
We tussled for over an hour, giving line and taking it back, and I was starting to show more signs of tiring out than the fish. As soon as I'd work him near the bank he'd give a big roll and off he'd go. Finally I tried to call my son-in-law who has a big net and who lives close by and works from home on Fridays - no mean feat trying to manage a fly rod with one hand and a cell phone with the other - but he wasn't at home. Tried to snap a couple pics of him in the water but by the time I snapped it all I got was the swirl. I was wishing he was on my 7 or 8wt both of which have fighting butts; my belly was getting pretty bruised up from holding the butt of the 5wt against it. Plus I really needed to pee.
I kept at it for a while longer before admitting defeat; got him close to the bank and grabbed the leader and he broke off in a nanosecond. So no fish, no fly, no pics, score: Fish - 1, Old Guy - 0.