Mossy Creek

[Mitchell Warren]

Having just moved to the area from KY, figured I'd give Mossy Creek a good try. Had a great weekend there, caught 13 small browns and even two carp. Fished Golden retrievers, various clousers, and Blue Winged Olives. Took some pics for everyone to enjoy but figured yall would enjoy this story:

Fished Sunday 12/13 really well, caught 6 browns and landed the two carp that day. On my way back to my car I wanted to try fishing this one pool again. I worked a clouser down the current and started to strip it back when BOOM! I had a royal monster on the line. I fought him for about 20 seconds and it took all my strength on my 4 wt that I didnt know could flex that much. After fighting him my line got caught up in a brush pile in the middle of the creek...this cant be happening is all I was thinking. I tried everything to get that line undone; used a branch to push it around, gave it more slack to let the current take the line out, spook the fish out throwing a stick, etc. So after no success I decided that I might have a better chance of success to get my line out from the other side of the creek. So I decided to throw my rod..yes throw it haha..to the other end of the creek and make a bull run across the bridge. It was almost pitch black outside, so after running through the woods and getting cut up by thorns I picked up my rod and attempted to land this monster. I could still feel him moving under the brush. In a last attempt to get my line out I unfortunately snapped my line. I was so defeated I just laid there in the dark haha. It was definitely tempting to get in the water to get him out but I respected the rules of the land...still questioning that one. Special shoutout to the other late night fly fisherman there that started cracking out when he saw me bust out of the tree line. Sometimes we fail out on the water but this is definitely one that I will remember for a long time thinking out what it could've been. Other than that, love Mossy Creek and the area!

Love reading about everyone's stories on here. Keep them coming!

Thanks,

Mitch

[Ashley Frohwein]

Great story. Wish it turned out better for you, but at least you've taken it in stride. Is that really a carp, or is it a fallfish? (I didn't realize Mossy held carp.) Were you using split shot to get the clouser lower in the water column?

My story hardly compares, but I hooked into what I thought was a ~20-inch brownie at Beaver Creek, MD on Sunday, but realized after about 3 seconds that it was just a massive fallfish.

[Mitchell Warren]

Ashley, not too sure really, carp, chub, fallfish, I know they're all in the same family but its pretty hard for me to tell. I guess I know its not the monster brown i was after haha. 

No split shots for me, I just used extra line and gave a ton of slack and kept my rod low to work it with the current to get it to the bottom, popping the rod down. 

[Misha Gill]

Paging Justin Schiavone.... He's caught carp in Beaver Creek Md I know for a fact.

[Justin Schiavone]

That looks like a carp to me.

Right Misha? I've certainly had difficulty in distinguishing these fish in the past, but I think I have a good understanding now. Here is the way I tell the difference and why I believe it is a carp:

Looks too golden for a sucker/ fall fish. And has an arching back. Turns out these fish ARE NOT in the same family. The easiest way to tell; however, is the barbels that protrude from a carps mouth, but NOT from a suckers. This is not able to be seen in the photo, but you can corroborate if they were. The mouths also differ in that carps are more centered, whereas a sucker is completely downward.

SUCKKKKASS.

Hope this helped.

Justin

[Ashley Frohwein]

we all know the real test: if it put up a fight, it was a carp.

[Justin Schiavone]

Check out this lunker sucker from a few weeks ago. 6x. disco midge.