Confidence, Carp, and Gnawing Doubt
The trouty bros have no idea how slow you need to go to catch a carp. I’m thinking this to myself, as I’m moving half an inch at a time over a mud flat covered with dead sticks, remnants of brushes drowned in the floods last year, and trying to muffle the sound of my boots lifting up out of the suction cup mud.
I’ve been stalking this big ass mud donkey that keeps showing me his tail as he’s rooting around in the ankle deep water. Big ol’ paddle waves out of the water surface every now and then, reminding me he is still there, and providing ample motivation to ignore the six easier targets surrounding me. I’m trying to make myself as invisible as possible, which is difficult as I am a relatively large gentleman, in ankle deep water in a wide open carp flat with no trees to hide behind, and nothing to make me disappear. So I move slowly, like a slug through a hot concrete jungle.
So far the ones I’ve spooked have gone the right direction and without too much noise, not alarming the big schlonker I’ve been stalking. But I’m still not close enough to make a cast, as the fish is in a thick obstacle course of twigs and branches, each one making enough noise to spook a 100ft radius when the fly or leader or line or wind from the cast moves it. So I keep slugging through it.
Carp are notoriously spooky, and this kind of fishing can wreak havoc on your confidence and emotional state. I’ve seen it turn strong adults into whiny babies, seen it make the most confident anglers second guess every decision. They get in your head like that. And I think there’s something extraordinarily beautiful about that.
The schlonker I’m chasing is just one of those carpholes that just gives you enough to think that you could catch him, but deep down with every second that passes, with every fish I pass up to continue my chase of the schlonk, he breeds doubt. The longer that the anticipation of the presentation looms, the more I question what to do. Should I wait until he moves into the open? Should I cut ahead of him and intercept what I think is his path? Should I give up on him? Should I go for a cast now, while I’m full of confidence and can do no wrong? I can make that perfect cast without rustling any of those wooden pieces of loud doom, surely…
When a carp gets in your head, he stays there. I think of all the past successes, the beautiful casts and perfect presentations. I can do this. I’m a freaking guide, man. I’m basically a living fishing god, these fish bend to my will. I. Can. Do. No. Wrong.
But I can, and that doubt looms ever larger as I start to see the shape of the fish, not just the tail. I see where his head is, where he’s going, and he’s coming into a nice open area about a foot across and half a foot long. I can do that, obviously. Who could doubt me? I make the cast, miraculously not hitting any sticks as the fly lands ahead of the fish and just past him. Perfect. I knew I could do it.
I drag the fly into his dinner plate, which is about 3 inches in front of his head, and an inch to the side. I see him slowly turn to inspect, and hopefully eat the fly. Damn I’m good. Basically a god. Did he eat it just then? Looks like he’s eating it. Should I set? No, let’s be sure he’s eating it, you just spent all this time stalking him, made a gorgeous cast and the perfect presentation, not going to blow it on the hookset are we?
I wait. I wait a second longer, just to be sure. Then I set.
He blows out of there, my fly not in his mouth anymore. After all that, a split second of doubt made sure I’d be replaying this moment in my nightmares for months to come. They all haunt you in one way or another, sprouting seeds of doubt, but also encouragement for more. For more punishment, for more glory, for more… insanity? I don’t know anymore, all I know is that moments like this can either break you, or you just save the tears for sleep and move on. There’s another big tail popping out of the water a ways down. Surely I can get that one…