Carp Rally in the Valley - written by Steve Cserpnyak
Carp Rally in the Valley
One of my favorite pastimes in fly fishing, since I moved to Arizona, is chasing carp on a fly rod. My progression in the sport kind of naturally led me to it. What’s not to like about mostly sight fishing for 30 in + fish? I think of it like a bad habit or addiction. When you first start it seems innocent enough, like chasing pretty 12” trout in pretty places. I still enjoy that, but now in the throes of my addiction to fly fishing going on close to 20 years, I spend my time in the ghetto of Phoenix fishing for monsters in canals which contain trash, shopping carts, bikes, and probably a body or two.
Steve doing some night catching
This obsession has led me to get involved in the local fly shop that hosts a carp tourney every year. The 1st 3 years, my partners and I had to work through some things and figure out how to be successful. I knew this year would be different. I know we had a chance to win, not just one of two categories for biggest or most fish. We wanted to win both, biggest and most fish, which had never been accomplished in this tournament.
When my partner Scott Long, a long-time friend and ridiculously good fly angler arrived to fish with me for the tournament. I had a hard time containing my excitement. I had spent months scouting spots and fine-tuning strategy and I knew that this spot and presentation would catch these monster grass carp. I spent a ton of time leading up to the tournament tying flies and bought every chartreuse material I could find. I also raided the local craft store and found things I couldn’t find at the fly shops. I was proud to say that every fish we caught at the tournament was caught on a fly pattern I tied. I wasted no time outlining the strategy and what I thought it would take to win both categories to Scott. He said, “Tell me what to do, and I will make it happen.” I know one thing about Scott, it is that he isn’t afraid of hard work.
On the day of the tournament, we registered at the shop and made a bee line to the shop. I knew other anglers from the tournament also knew about the spot, so being there early would be key. Like clockwork another team showed up and fished directly across from us. I made my 1st cast, 2 stack mends and bobber down! Netting these fish requires more patience than any fish I have targeted. If you try to make it happen, you will lose them. Well, our 1st fish had us a little excited and I tried to put too much pressure on the head and that 30 in fish was gone. A bad omen? Nope! We just went right back to our spot and within minutes, Scott had 1 on. This continued from 10am at the start of the tournament till around Midnight. Our net finally broke and we needed to make a midnight run to the Scottsdale Wal-Mart to buy another and have something to eat besides Beef Jerky and Protein bars.
Nice Carp caught to up their winning entries
We decided to get 2 hours of sleep before getting up at 3am to be back on the water at 4am. We ended up catching 5 carp at night, which was a new experiment that we weren’t 100% sure would work, but it did and likely won the most fish category for us.
When the whirlwind 24 hour period ended we were informed that we had accomplished our goal of winning the biggest and most fish categories for the 1st time ever. We submitted 21 grass carp, the biggest was 38 inches long. Scott had a couple bigger ones on, but they came unbuttoned. We had another dozen that didn’t work out for one reason or another.
In the end, the best part was all the stories and time spent with an amazing friend. We had a blast and can’t wait to do it next year!
WINNERS!! Steve Cserpnyak & Scott Long
