Opening Day

Well, I ventured out to a favorite lake on opening day only to find it covered in snow and ice.
There was about fifteen feet of water open on one side of the lake so I hiked over just to wet my line, but to no avail. What to do next? It was still pretty early, and I didn't need to be home to take care of my daughter Akasha until around three, so I ventured down to a pair of sloughs near the river to try my hand at carp on the fly.
I have been reading from John Montana's Carp on the Fly blog and got fired up to give it a try.
After about five minutes of scouting I spied a few big carp tailing in the mud. I made some casts and spooked them. Damn! Then I found another pod and was able to lead the fish a little more and sure enough, one dove to take the San Juan. I set the hook and the carp didn't even budge. I thought I might have foul hooked him but then he turned his body and started to take off. It was really cool to be able to watch him the whole time. It wasn't so cool to hear my drag going and then my line pop. He broke my 3x leader right in the middle! I was bummed, and I hiked back to the car and pulled a 0x from my Steelhead box and returned to try again. I then lost my only other San Juan worm on a power pole along the rim of the slough. I tied on a olive leach pattern and kept casting to cruising fish with no luck.
I decided to try and make it around the other side of the slough, and after a lot of slipping and sliding on the pit run size basalt I made it around. I spotted a hovering fish about ten feet from shore and dropped the leech right in front of him. He took it, no questions asked. I set the hook again and this fish turned and ran right away. 15, 20, 30 feet of line and then pow!! Off again. I couldn't believe he could have broke off. Then as I was stripping line back in I noticed that I still had the fly on. I thought for sure I had made a good set. When I got the fly in my hand I was to find out that the brute had actually broke the hook bend off. These fish are strong.
I wasn't able to tempt any other fish, but I was clearly excited about my first carp on the fly outing. I will return with a better tackle set up and maybe go lighter on the drag.