Rewarded for my efforts..

For anyone that reads my blog regularly you will know Ive been trying to get a carp on the fly rod by targeting them with cray and damsel patterns, to lure them into taking basically. Ive caught carp before on a daddy long legs fly and also a bread fly, but have always wanted to catch one on a subsurface fly. Its been a slightly frustrating time as Ive missed a few chances and its taken me about 8 attempts to finally get a fish which i did today!
The whole point of it for me was for the same enjoyment i get out of lure fishing, working a lure or fly to get a fish to eat it, reacting to what it is your imparting into the lure or fly. Its the satisfaction of knowing its what you did with the lure/fly that got the fish.
Don't get me wrong id catch carp on dog biscuit and bread flies any day of the week for the pure fun of it, but the fish i found were wild river fish that would not respond to bait, they needed something extra, that was the challenge. Along the way i had to learn certain things and i suppose if i carry on the pursuit i will learn much more. Often i would turn up and have to spend an hour or two just searching for them in shallow water, then id maybe even only get a few casts a session as they might not respond or i might only find the one fish. Then i had challenges of water conditions and the fact that if i found them feeding in the silt they would stir the water up and i could hardly see them, so i then had the problem of knowing if they were near my fly or even eaten it, or could in fact even see it.
I had to think about what it was they were eating and how i would present this without fouling up in any weed etc, it was starting to feel like an impossible mission but it had really got to me now and i couldn't stop trying. I started to wonder if i was wasting my time and i was certainly wasting opportunities to fish elsewhere by going after them. The thing is, i always had in the back of my mind that it was possible and how good it would feel if i ever pulled it off.

Things started to come together for me when the weather warmed up, this made them move to feed higher in the water and instead of silt sifting they would rummage in the weed and even come close to the surface to investigate the surface rafts of weed. I had my first glimmer of hope when i cast to the side of a fish feeding in the weed, i had a damsel nymph on and it turned towards it and i saw the mouth open to my fly but as it tried to suck it in the fly became lodged in weed! very frustrating. I presumed the fish thought the nymph had come out of the weed it was disturbing, so this was my next plan of attack, to find the fish weeding in this way.
It took a few sessions before i got my next chance and this time i was using a bigger mouthful in the form of a cray style carp fly, hoping the bigger and more livelier fly would attract them more. It worked and i had to endure the failure of having two fish suck in the fly only for me to pull it out again on the strike!

So today it finally happened and it was one of my most satisfying angling moments to date, it felt so rewarding as i knew id put allot of effort in and id learnt allot. The thing that made the difference today was something my mate Mart mentioned to me, saying to strike sideways and in the opposite direction the fish was facing, it made sense and whether or not it was this that made the difference i don't know but i hooked the fish and watched it tear off stripping my fly line like a poor mans bone fish! fantastic!

I was in a bit of a panic taking the photos and with it being hot i didn't want to mess about too much so there not the best but they will do.

I will sleep a very sweet night tonight!