About six months ago I shared how one outdoors enthusiast was dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Gary Keisler, a self-employed salesman from Mount Pleasant, was tying flies and spending free moments stalking fish in his neighborhood ponds. Keisler said his business had gone from very good to zero, and fly fishing was a way to deal with the turmoil.
Keisler did most of his fly-tying while watching Andy Griffith Show reruns and began naming his creations after characters in the show. He has a bug-eyed Otis fly, an Ernest T. Bass fly, a couple of versions of Barney Fife and a Thelma Lou.
Keisler said he’s spent around 300 days fishing this year, missing only a few because of the weather or while on a vacation trip. He usually caught bass and bream, but there was one species in the lake that eluded him — carp. A few weeks ago, Keisler was able to fill that bucket-list quest, catching an estimated 7- to 8-pound carp on a 6-weight rod and his latest Andy Griffith creation — the Mopey Opie, named for the character played by Ron Howard.
Keisler caught his carp on this fly he tied, called the Mopey Opie, named for a character on the Andy Griffith Show. Provided photo
“I was so elated. I couldn’t believe it,” Keisler said. “All I could think about was taking a picture of it. I was thinking ‘Please, please, please let me get this thing landed.’ I thought my rod was going to break. I got the carp on the reel and he just went down the lake. It took me about 15 minutes. Every time I would get him up near the bank he would run away again.
“This is a strong, strong, powerful fish. And they are so spooky you have to be in stealth mode if you want to catch them. I’ve watched hundreds of videos on how to catch them. This one was swimming with several others. He wasn’t really eating. I made a perfect cast and just stripped it right by this guy and he sucked it down. It was so much fun.”
Keisler said he had hooked carp on previous trips but was unable to land them. He has not been using a net but has decided to change that.
“It’s really hard to get those fish on the bank without a net. They flop and turn and splash and are so strong. I had my fishing shoes on and got down in the water, waded in and pulled it up. I took a picture and then got him back into the lake,” he said.
The key to finally landing his trophy carp was a tip from fly fishing expert Owen Plier at Haddrell’s Point Fin to Feather. Plier asked about the size hook Keisler was using, and suggested instead of the bass streamer-size hooks to try a tiny 14s hook, something Keisler said was difficult to see well enough to thread his tippet through the eye.
“Their mouths are so small. It’s only about the size of a quarter,” said Keisler, who added that there are bigger carp to be caught. “I was talking to a man who manages the lake and he told me there are carp in there that weigh 30 pounds.”
There are several other species still on Keisler’s wish list — a bonefish and a permit on the fly, a tarpon (although he said spinning tackle would be fine for the tarpon). Even a bonnethead shark. Keisler checked another bucket list species, the smallmouth bass, on a recent trip to the Clinch River in Tennessee with brothers Greg and David Peralta.
“I told my wife at the beginning the of the year I was going to try to fish every day this year,” Keisler said. “You wouldn’t think doing something every day is really that hard. But now I have a better appreciation of fishing guides who go out every day. It’s really hard to do.
“You have to believe. If you stop believing you can’t catch them. You just have to believe you’re going to catch one. It was a scream, an absolute scream. One thing for sure, even when there is turmoil in the world we can still find happiness in the pursuit of trying to catch a carp.”
America’s Boating Club
America’s Boating Club Charleston will hold boating safety classes on Dec. 5 and Jan. 9 at 1376 Orange Grove Road, Charleston. The classes begin at 9 a.m. and end around 4 p.m. Successful participants earn the S.C. Department of Natural Resources Boater Education Card. The cost is $25 for adults and youth 12-18 are free. Call 843-312-2876 or email lynes@tds.net.
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