Michigan Outdoor News, Beaver Island’s fishing bonanza: Sight-fishing for carp by George Rowe

A few years ago, ardent anglers from all over these United States and some foreign places traveled to Beaver Island for the fishing — some of the best smallmouth bass fishing on the planet.

Cormorants are generally blamed for the demise of that fishing.  But cormorant control measures have been practiced on the island in recent years and the bass fishery may be on the rebound.  Now, the lowly carp is a new star of the islands.  Steve West, the enthusiastic Chamber of Commerce guru for the island, calls carp the "Golden Bones of Beaver Island," comparing the carp, of course , to the bonefish of Florida and the Bahamas.  And, it isn’t a bad comparison.  But comparing the fishing to angling for permit off Florida or the Bahamas might be an even better comparison.

Bonefish rarely get to be much heavier than 10 pounds, but the permit grow to enormous sizes and the average fish might be close to the weight of a Beaver Island carp.  The fight in both fish is similar.

This is why one might see in St. James Harbor a strange skiff with a poling platform at the stern and a long push-pole lashed to the deck.  This craft is used to move slowly along the shallow flats, as those aboard search for fish.

This fishing is really part hunting.  First you find the fish, then you work to get in position for a cast.  The fish is apt to ignore your offering, so you go in search of another fish.  Fortunately, there are lots of carp, so you’ll get another opportunity. shortly.

 When I heard about this fishing, I was eager to try it.  As one with a great deal of experience with bonefish and permit in Florida and the Bahamas, it would be very interesting for me to sample some new flats fishing.

I ran some weekend charters while living in Florida, fishing the upper Keys, and visited many locations in the Bahamas for bonefish.  This is some of the finest fishing in the world.  The skiff, set up to operate well in shallow water, is poled across the shallow flats, in gin-clear water no more than 15 or 20 inches deep.  The fish often are spotted "tailing," showing their tails and dorsal fins as they root around in the soft bottom for cabs, shrimp, and other tasty morsels.  You also can spot them just swimming along slowly, cruising.  The fact that they’re often in small schools helps in seeing them.  Sometimes, you first see mud where the fish have been feeding and stirring up the bottom.

Fishing for the Beaver Island carp is exactly the same, except that the fish are easier to see.  Carp are darker and larger, averaging perhaps 15 to 20 pounds.

It’s a good idea to wear polarized sunglasses, especially if the day is cloudy or if there’s much of a chop on the water.  When we were out there, the sun was bright for much of the day and Lake Michigan was as placid as a mill pond, so it was pretty easy to spot the fish.

 Carp congregate in the shallows as soon as the water warms enough for spawning.  The best time is apparently from mid-June through August.

The best fishing technique is to cast a fly that imitates a crayfish or some other small crustacean.  When a fish is spotted, the boat handler maneuvers the skiff close enough so that the angler can reach the fish and drop the fly well in front of it.

When the fish approaches the fly, the angler begins a hopping retrieve, right in front of the fishes nose in hopes the carp will turn and pursue the fly, taking it in his mouth.  More often than not, however, the fish will ignore the offering and continue to cruise.

Sometimes the fish will show some interest by turning after the fly and then turning away again.  Like bonefish, carp are easily spooked, and they’re not likely to take any lure.  As a matter of fact, they often scoot right out of sight.

They don’t seem too sensitive to the waving of the rod or even the little splash when the fly hits the water.  They’re sensitive to sound, however, so if the boat handler makes too much noise with the pole or if a wader makes much noise with his feet, they quickly will swim away.

Gearing up

The tackle we used was sturdy fly-fishing gear — an 8-weight rod with a matching weight-forward or torpedo floating line.  The leader was about 5 feet of 10-pound-test mono.  The flies were large, mostly multi-colored but dark, and most were weighted slightly.

Expect to make good casts to many fish before hooking up.  Our guide said carp are poor predators and not very effective in chasing down prey.  Apparently their vision is not great.  When you do hook up, set the hook and hang on.  These fish will make long initial runs and yet another long run after you battle them back to the boat.  They are large, of course, very strong, and they have terrific stamina.

The reels the guide uses are large with a good drag and there is ample backing behind the fly line.  You’ll see it on virtually every fish.  The fight is frantic.  A carp will run, run and run then get sideways and resist all the way back to the boat.  They are great fun to catch.

Some of the reward is the setting — way back in some remote bay by Hog Island, all be yourself, in a pristine wilderness, surrounded by crystal clear water.

The cormorants are still very much evident, despite serious efforts to limit their impact on the area.  They have created absolutely barren rocky ruins on some of the smaller islands where they have roosted, killed all the trees and other foliage with their droppings.  The new import — the goby — may have a good impact on the fishing.  The cormorants eat them and thus might eat fewer bass fry.  The goby is also bass food.

The smallmouth bass fishery has apparently recovered somewhat.  There is again an open season for them, starting July 1, and you can sight-fish for them just as we did for carp.

We spotted many smallmouths, including a few fish that had been tagged by CMU researchers aboard a vessel operating in the area.

If you want to try this fishing, contact Kevin Morlock who operates the Indigo Guide Service out of Walhalla.  Comfortable accommodations are available on Beaver Island.

Want to try sight-fishing for big, powerful fish in a beautiful setting?  Try those Beaver Island "golden bones."

This article "The Carp of Beaver Island" by Brandon Butler appeared in Midwest Fly Fishing in the October 2008 issue.  Midwest Fly Fishing is a great regional publication, you can check out their web site at… Midwest Fly Fishing (www.mwfly.com).

The Carp of Beaver Island

Brandon Butler with a carp hooked on the flats near Beaver Island.      photo/ Kevin Morlock

     Walking up the ramp of the Emerald Isle for the trip from Charlevoix, Mich., to Lake Michgian’s Beaver Island, anticipation gave way to acceptance.  Month after month had been crossed off my calendar as I awaited the arrival of the 4th of July expedition.
     In the back of my mind, I had questioned the rational if driving more than 500 miles to fly fish for carp — after all, they’re the same fish that swim a stone’s throw from my home in Indiana.  But I had been told by a trusted guide that the experience would be one I would never forget.  So as the ship’s engines began to rumble, I settled back to see what would happen.
     After the two-hour, 32-mile ferry ride to the tiny town of St. James on the island, it was clear that the experience I would never forget would be an adventure, as well.  The island is about 13 miles long and 6 miles wide, about 54 square miles in area.  A weathered, old lighthouse greets travelers to the island, and the harbor moors only a handful of boats.  In the marina parking lot, friends and family awaited the Isle’s arrival.  My guide-to-be, Kevin Morlock, was among them.
     Kevin is a well-known salmon and steelhead guide on the rivers of western Michigan.  When we met a few years back, the crossing of kindred souls was obvious.  In the years since, we have fished together numerous times.
     After a quick tour of Main Street in St. James, we headed to the campground where Kevin stayed for the summer.  It was located on a high bluff, overlooking the waters of Lake Michigan.  The horizon was dotted with the uninhabited islands of Trout, Whiskey, Garden and Hog.  From this vantage point, Kevin, while taking his morning coffee, could scout carp feeding on the sand flats below.  For the sake of simplicity, I had left my tent at home and rigged a hammock between two trees where the wind would rock me and the waves would serenade at the end of a hard day’s night.
     I’m not a morning person, so when Kevin told me carp fishing improves as the day progresses, I was pleased.  We shuffled around our camp the first morning and discussed strategy while waiting for the sun to warm the water.
     Kevin fishes from a flats boat, 17 feet long with a 40-horse motor.  It had a platform in back from which he could pole us toward carp without a sound.
     Like most of us who have Champaign dreams and beer budgets, I have longed for but have never been able to afford saltwater adventures.  The idea of a steelheading maestro, perched atop a platform, pushing me around in search of tailing carp in the northern most reaches of America, was inspiring.
     We launched the boat off the eastern shore of the island and headed for the southern tip.  The water temperatures we took on the main lake were in the low 60s; too cold for aggressive carp.  Kevin expected the water would be warmer in the south bays, inviting pods of carp to gather in the shallow water.
     I never thought this trip would change my perception of a species I knew so little about, but as we watched carp after carp cruising the outer lip of the flats, i found them irresistible.  Back home in Indiana, people shoot carp with bow and arrow and trow their carcasses away.  Seeing these finicky, beautiful beasts cruising crystal-clear water in search of food is something else.
     We moored the boat in a few feet of water and began to approach the shallows where the fish were feeding.  The water temperature here was 70 degrees, perfect for feeding fish.
     Kevin was on a mission this summer to catch as many carp as he could because he is tagging caught fish to track their movements in Lake Michigan.  A biologist at heart, he enjoys the science of the experience as much as the catching.  I left him to his own pod and set out down the beach in search of more fish.  They weren’t hard to locate, and a group of feeding fish appeared before me as a dark streak across the clear water.
     I slipped up behind a large bolder 50 feet or so from a pod of a half-dozen carp.  Kevin had warned me to get the fly close to the feeding fish, into an area as wide as a basketball hoop.  Their eyesight, he said, is poor and they rarely chase flies aggressively.
     Seeing so many carp around me, I figured these fish would be easy to catch, but they are not.  I worked this little pod for nearly and hour, before finally, a fish took.  The moment is still fresh in my mind.  I was growing anxiously annoyed, when I targeted a carp on the outskirts of the pod.  The cast was a few feet beyond the fish, perfect for allowing my goby imitation time to sink the necessary two feet.  As I strip-stripped the minnow along the bottom, allowing for a pause just in front of the fish’s face, I watched with amazement as its bugle-mouth opened and inhaled my fly.  Somehow I kept my excitement in check and executed a solid hook set.  The fight was on.
     As the thirty-inch fish ran for deep water, I slightly tightened my drag.  We struggled back and forth for 15 minutes before I finally brought the magnificent fish to hand.  In awe, I caressed the sided of the fish and released it with a new-found respect for such a maligned species.
     Fatigued suddenly and pensive, I crawled onto a nearby boulder and listened to the sounds of waves breaking on the shoreline of Beaver Island and the wind from the great lake around me.

Brandon Butler is a syndicated outdoor writer from Bloomington, Ind.  Contact him through his website www.driftwoodoutdoors.org.

Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce web site…