2013 Carp Classic Fly Tournament Re-Cap

Let's face it, if you're going to host a carp tournament in mid-May at Blackfoot Reservoir, you're rolling the dice. May is by far our wettest month of the year, with triple the average precip versus July or August.

This year, once again, the weather was nothing short of craptastic.

I get it - most of the participants will be guiding clients full-time starting this week, so the scheduling window is a small one. Still, you can bet dollars-to-donuts you'll get rain, wind and snow in the high country this time of year. When that happens, the carp don't eat. 

Day One 

Deja vu - 45 degrees with dark skies and increasing winds. We spent the first few hours of the tournament on the move, scanning the water for active fish. There were a few carp up in the shallows but they weren't buying what we were selling.

Cast after cast went unrewarded until Chris spotted some feeders from atop a small cliff. After scrambling down into range, he pulled a rabbit out of his hat and landed this 27.4-pound fatty.

His fish got our team on the board and it was the largest carp of the day for the tournament.

You'd think this glimmer of hope would be enough to keep us going, but the fishing went from bad to worse. After six hours of lousy carping, we decided to ditch the tourney and go trout fishing in the river below the reservoir.

It was a nice diversion and I was able to get the skunk off.

After a couple of hours of troutin', we returned to the tournament where Chris received a prize for his hog.

Day Two
The weather went from lousy to "even lousier" and I had a dilemma. The dirt roads surrounding the reservoir turned into pudding and I had an 18' camp trailer to haul back to town - plus a plane to catch in the morning. I decided to skip the rest of the tournament to head back to town before the situation got any worse.  This turned out to be a good call as the trailer barely made it up the hill above the Poison Creek boat ramp.

I made it home but missed the post-tournament after party, which was apparently 'off the hook.'  Most of the photos are not suitable for a PG-13 blog such as Uprising, but here is one Shane sent from his phone.  

East Idaho clearly knows how to party.