The article "It’s clear:  Underrated carp offers game-fishing challenge" by Eric Sharp appeared in the Detroit Free Press on July 24th, 2008.

It’s clear:  Underrated carp offers game-fishing challenge

     Beaver Island — If you showed a picture of this place to an experienced saltwater angler, he’d almost certainly say it was taken in the Florida Keys or somewhere else in the tropics.
     On a virtually windless day, the surface was flat and the water so clear that every pebble was visible on the bottom 20 feet below.
     And as Kevin Morlock eased his skiff onto a shallow flat where the water was about three feet deep, we saw a couple of long, dark shapes that moved over the bottom while the black

shadows cast by underwater rocks stayed still.
     The moving shapes were good-sized examples of America’s most underrated game fish, a species that lends itself to stalking and sight fishing just like stalking bones in the Keys — the noble carp.
     There probably is no place in world better suited to this kind of fishing than northern lakes Michigan and Huron.  And the Beaver Island archipelago, a cluster of islands 10-30 miles off the northwest tip of the Lower Peninsula, may well offer the best of the best.
     "The conditions really look good," fishing guide Kevin Morlock said as we ran across Lake Michigan toward a flat on the south side of Garden Island about three miles from Beaver Island’s St. James Harbor.  "This is the lightest wind we’ve had for weeks.  Most of this summer, the seas have been running three or four feet."
     Sight fishing on clear, shallow flats requires accurate casting whether the target is carp, bonefish, tarpon or redfish.  For carp and bonefish, the key is placing the fly or jig close enough to the fish’s heads that they can see it but far enough away that it doesn’t spook them.
     "A lot of anglers don’t understand that casting to these fish isn’t like casting to a trout or salmon and letting the fly drift down to it.  If you don’t put the fly in the teacup, you don’t have much chance of getting a take," said Morlock, who owns Indigo Guide Service on the Pere Marquette River out of Walhalla, fishing that river from the start of the mid-August salmon run through the steelhead runs in winter and spring.
     The more sight casting you do, the better you get.  I had made only one previous sight-casting trip this summer, mostly because the weather has been unsuitable, so I bungled some casts and scared off fish.
     But I also made a number of very good casts only to see the carp ignore flies that passed within inches of their eyes.
     "This is what I ran into a couple of days ago," Morlock said.  "I kept changing flies, but they wouldn’t take anything we offered."
     Morlock agreed with my observation that carp cruising along in a straight line at high speed will rarely turn to investigate a lure.  It’s obvious that they’re on a mission and won’t be sidetracked.
     So we were both surprised a little later when I made a Hail Mary cast at a carp cruising by at six knots and the fish stopped on a dime, turned and began following the fly.  The carp was almost touching the crayfish pattern with its nose, and while it followed the lure for 40 feet, it wouldn’t bite and turned off as soon as it saw the boat.
     "I think what happens is that when we get wind changes like we’ve had for the past couple of days, it takes the fish some time to settle down to a new (feeding) pattern,"  Morlock said.  "I like to see the wind come steadily out of one direction for a couple of days.  When we get that, I know where to find them, and they seem to feed a lot more eagerly."
     British anglers have a mantra:  Follow the wind.  They look for bays and points where the wind concentrates food.  Morlock is also so an adherent of that theory and said, "You want to find the gnarliest points and fish around them.  In summer, that’s where the currents pile up the warmest water."
     Morlock’s average day:  dozens or even hundreds of fish sighted, 12-15 hooked up and five-10 landed and released.
     This day was one of the few when the fish were widely scattered and wouldn’t touch anything we offered.  But it was far from a total loss because we got to experience one of the most exceptional fishing experiences that Michigan offers, in a place that few people realize exists.
     Most people who visit the islands arrive aboard a Beaver Island Boat co. ferry that makes the 33-mile trip from Charlevoix in about two hours ($46 round-trip).  Another option is a 20-minute flight on Island Airways ($86 round-trip).  The ferry also carries cars and boat trailers.

Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce
Beaver Island Boat Company
Island Airways
Fresh Air Aviation

This article appeared in the HeraldTimes along with several other newspapers around July 13, 2008 and was written by Brandon Butler.

When considering typical fish pursued by those armed with a fly rod, the common carp is rarely one of the first to come to mind. Unfortunately considered by most to be nothing more than rough fish, carp are in actuality hard fighting, highly intelligent, large-sized fresh water fish worthy of respect. I recently traveled to Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan to pursue these "bone-fish of the north" with fly fishing gear.

This past spring, in between releasing steelhead during a great day on the river, my good friend and well-known Michigan fly fishing guide Kevin Morlock, of Indigo Guide Service, asked me if I was interested in trying something new. From the smile on his face, I knew it would be good. When Kevin invited me to join him on a carp fishing expedition I began to think all those days on the water had finally caught up with him.   

Always a sucker for adventure, I pulled into Charlevoix, Michigan at about noon in plenty of time to catch the 2:30 ferry. Situated approximately 30 miles off lower-Michigan’s mainland (about a 2 hour and 15 minute ferry ride), Beaver Island awaits those looking to get away from it all. When I first stepped off the ferry, I was pleasantly surprised. Having traveled to Mackinac Island numerous times before, I supposed I expected Beaver to be similar. There were no fudge shops, no horse drawn carriages, and most importantly, no lodges requiring a suit jacket at dinner! Beaver Island is rustic and remote, yet completely satisfying. There is one grocery store, a few restaurants and bars, two marinas, a golf course, and 42 miles of beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline.

Kevin Morlock has come up with an innovative idea for fishing the crystal clear, aqua colored waters surrounding the Island. The innovation simply comes from applying ocean flats fishing to the northern waters of Michigan. Kevin has mounted a platform on the rear of his 17′ boat and uses a 20′ push pole to quietly maneuver around the flats in search of cruising carp. When carp are located in a pod, Kevin anchors the boat so a stealthy approach can be made on foot. The sand and gravel flats are at times only ankle deep a quarter-mile of the shore. I swear, if there had been a tiki-hut, with a bartender offering me a Red Stripe, ‘mon, I would have thought I’d finally realized my dream of Jamaica.

The fishing was much tougher than I thought it would be. In two days on the water, I boated 3 and Kevin 7. The wind was ferocious, so Kevin said we did well considering the conditions. He was a little upset that we didn’t get into them the way he is used to; when twenty fish days are common. We used 8 wt. and 10 wt. rods, with weight forward floating line, and 7 foot leaders tapered to 12 lbs. The carp took a variety of flies imitating crayfish, gobies, and leaches. Go ahead and hold the dough ball and corn jokes. We got plenty of them our first day on the island!

If you are interested in a true Midwestern adventure, head to the wilderness of Beaver Island. Be careful though, the locals warn, "You’ll get sand in your shoes!"

Brandon Butler is a professional outdoor communicator living in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife and two daughters. He is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers, and the Hoosier Outdoors Writers. Brandon writes a weekly outdoor column for almost a dozen newspapers and has been featured in many outdoor publications. You can contact Brandon from his Web site at

www.driftwoodoutdoors.org

This article is also on the Pure Michigan web site…