Fishing Adventures: Sight fishing for carp

I was up at 5:30am and out the door by a quarter to six. I fished in a normal summer location near my house. It rained yesterday so the river was dirty. Visibility was not that good. I caught a smallmouth right off the bat. It was a dinky fish, but it was a real survivor. This fish had survivied some kind of attack by a predidtor; a blue heron or a hawk, some kind of piscavoir. It had a huge gash on its belly. I took a picture because it was pretty remarkable that this fish was alive and agressively eating. The morning dragged on and a caught a few more average sized smallmouth. As I was casting twords the far bank in search of the next smallie, I saw a carp tailing in the shallows about 20 yards down stream of me on the same side of the stream I was on. I got down on my knees and made a perfect cast placing a crafish fly about a foot in front of the tailing carp. I gave the fly a twitch or two and the carp took an interest, it swam over and sucked up the fly. I set the hook and it was on!! The fish tured tail and tore off down stream ripping line off the reel as it went. I got up and ran down stream chasing the fish. The fish swam under some low hanging branches that I got hung up in for a moment. As I was dealing with the trees the fish kept on going. Once I freed myself from the trees, I continued to chase the fish down. At this point it had taken me into the backing. The river had widended giving me a good chance to put the breaks on the fish inorder to bring it in. I turned it and worked it back to me. I landed the fish for the obligitory photo. Man, that was awsome!! It's so hard to catch a tailing carp. They spook so easliy and you have to place the cast with the percision of a sharpshooter. Everything came together this morning. There is nothing like sight fishing for carp.