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.

Somthing took a bite out of this fish

          Lucky to be alive

Into the backing!!!!