2012 Carp Tourney

As many of our customers that were in Troutfitters in late June and early July know I entered The Bighorn River Alliances Carp Tourney on Bighorn Lake. I say that 

many of our customers that came into the shop would know that I was entered because I was extremely excited and giddy like a little school child. Last year I took the summer off from Troutfitters and headed back home to the lovely town of Hardin, MT along the Bighorn River. While there I got a phone call from my buddy Ian Majszak asking me to row him around while he filmed the event; of course I accepted. During the day I rowed Ian up and down the lake to boats and watched them landing carp on Hoppers and Cicada’s. After a while I had a hard time not telling Ian to put away the camera and let’s stick some carp. Since that point I’ve been itching to head back and throw big foam flies at the bronze beasts.

Finally the time came around and on the sixth of July I headed back east to Fort Smith for the carp tourney with a buddy and a shop regular Grant Grigsby. The rules on the Tourney were two man teams, no motors and no chumming; other than that it’s free game. The tourney started at 10:00 am and the check-in time was at 4:00 pm.
I’m not going to lie to you I was fairly confident that we were going to stick carp, maybe not win or even place in the tourney but have a good day. Bighorn Lake is extremely scenic and as a result it has a large amount of recreational boaters on it. Those boats often throw bread and popcorn into the lake and feed the carp. I thought it would be a good piece of inside info and give me an edge so I tied up a bunch of flies that looked like bread and popcorn. I was loaded on flies-everything from the popcorn and bread to cotton wood seeds and leeches. I’m no stranger to the carp game-I was prepped and ready and had everything I could possibly need.