Arizona Koi
I recently had 4 days in Arizona to check out Spring Training, fish urban ponds, and explore miles of canal systems. What was supposed to be an epic weekend in the desert turned into 3 days of fever, chills, body aches, and strep throat. After spending 2 days in bed and 1 at the Urgent Care, I had only 1 day left to land a koi on the fly.
The day started with a lot of clouds, which almost made it impossible to see in the water. Morning winds were almost strong enough to create whitecaps. Not at all optimal conditions, but figured I could scout some ponds and wait for the overcast to burn off. Once the sun came out I realized these fish were the spookiest I had ever attempted to catch and the clear water allowed them to spot me quickly. I would see an orange glow about 20 ft down the bank, watch which direction it was cruising, and before I could even attempt to make a cast, it was gone. I stalked them for a good 6 hours and had only one failed hookset to show for it. I then found a small corner of a pond that was filled with wind blown debris. I soon as I saw their lips searching through the drift, I knew this was my chance.
For as clear as the water was, I had not seen a catfish all day. But as soon as the fly hit the water, a nice sized channel cat came out of nowhere and nailed it. While I was hoping for koi, I was happy to finally have a fish on. While cats are known to fight hard and usually roll, this thing blew my mind and took off like a bullet. Due to extremely small tippet in clear water, my drag was set very light and this cat was in my backing before I could blink. He didn’t stop and was just peeling across the lake. It was a great fight to get him back in, and what started off as a shitty weekend, ended on a great note.
The channel cat peeled off so much line that I ended up landing him about 50 yards from where I hooked him. The distance allowed the corner to cool down and the fish were back in it once I released the catfish. I slowly crept back in and hooked into a common carp on my very next cast. After 6 hours of every fish darting off as soon as I saw ’em, I couldn’t believe my luck.
Carp fight pretty hard, but this fish was a bit of a disappointment after the fight Ol’ Mr. Whiskers had just given me. Once I got him in I was feeling confident and decided I wouldn’t even make another presentation unless it was to a koi. It was the fish I came for and I knew I could get one before I left. Sure enough, on my very next cast, I put the fly directly in front of an orange whale and he took it.
rhino_net was nice enough to hook me up with a handful of the flies necessary for AZ waters. Basic carp patterns, eggs, and San Juan worms were money. The biggest piece of advise I received from Andrew was lightweight tippet. I usually throw at least 12lb tippet in polluted urban waterways, but the water in AZ is so clear the fish can see it. 4X, 5X, and 6X is sometimes necessary. Just keep the drag set as light as possible and be sure to re-tie new tippet often. These fish can put a serious hurting on lightweight tippet and you don’t want to lose the next fish on bad line.
Be sure to check out Project: CARP fly fishing from our AZ fishing buddy Ryan Russell
Please practice Catch & Release in urban settings to preserve these precious resources for other urban anglers.