BLACKFOOT RESERVOIR

The Road Trip That Almost Wasn’t…

by

Sam & Melissa Hicks

Finally loaded, this trip is actually happening!

I'd been in a mad scramble for the last 2 weeks attempting to get one last work project done so I could leave. The weather had not cooperated at all… I’m a concrete guy so I really don't care for rain, it balls everything up and we’d had plenty of it all month! I'd even told Melissa, my wife to tell her boss that our planned road trip wasn't gonna happen but somehow, my anti-rain dances had done their job and everything had eventually worked out, albeit a few days later than planned.

So… Leaving 4 days later than I wished presented challenges in finding a decent location to fish because it was Memorial Day weekend and that meant, that Blackfoot was likely to be extra busy with all the locals vacationing and partying there too…

I had great info from my American Carp Society buddies Wayne Boon and Spencer Powell, so felt prepared tactically. Melissa didn’t get off work till 4:00 pm so I had plenty of time to pack every piece of gear that I own. Yup, I was taking it all.

By the time she got home, I had the back of my 1 ton crew cab loaded to the gills with anything I think of... Yes, I'm that guy, even the kitchen sink comes if I feel I need it lol…

Bright and early, 6 am Saturday morning we take off. 460 miles…Eight hours or so, no problem. The actual road trip went down uneventfully without any drama, thank God! No one wants issues while traveling.

We made decent time and arrived around 2:45 in the afternoon which left us plenty of time to set camp up but my first glimpse of the reservoir didn’t fill me with hope. Oh boy, it was just like I was afraid of; the lake had party camps everywhere with bikes ripping up and down the road.

I remember thinking, Eh, we can deal with it, It's a very big Reservoir and we should be able to find a spot that is fishable. The water level was a lot lower than expected as we drove along looking for an access point without the noisy party crowd in attendance.

20 minutes later, it was starting to look a little bleak. Another hour passed and we are still looking... Then Melissa pointed out 2 trucks leaving a small bay - ok, lets see. I pick my way down carefully but almost got stuck in some really soft ground but thankfully I was already in 4 wheel drive, so I was able to back out in an instant (a lesson from long ago. I've buried a truck before).

I immediately grabbed my deeper and headed for the water’s edge; I really value this piece of gear, it helps so much on our large Western reservoirs. Melissa took off down the bank exploring while I started casting out 120 yards out in every direction, its not even 2 foot deep! Well crap, this swim wasn't gonna work.

Over 200 yards away, I hear Melissa yelling at me. On the other side of the bay, I saw a large carp do a full breach out of the water. A slight smile develops, I never run from fish. Now I gotta find a way over there. I found a slight track hidden among the sage brush. I walked it... it's dry. Good!

Finally some luck and 20 minutes later, we are setting up camp. Fish were showing everywhere but the water was really shallow all the way out to about 80 yards.

I ended up placing my baits out at 100 yards, where it was about 4 foot of deep. This time of year (May 2021), that is about perfect. I put on my waders to go check the bottom but at 30 yards out, it's was so soft, I sank up to my knees, tipped forward and gave myself a good dunking which gave my wife a good smile. Of course, I wasn’t really all that amused; its been a long day already, now I'm soaked and I have to crawl out of this mud back to shore…

It was 5:30 pm by the time that I got changed and get the rods set up for the night.

I had been told that these carp can be really finicky and preoccupied with naturals so I was really prepared to be very patient… However, they were still showing everywhere so we had hope.

At 8:45 pm, Melissa's right rod alarm screamed off and she was on it in an instant, while I damned near fell over my feet with shock! I didn't think we get one this quick. 10 minutes later I netted her first Blackfoot Carp, a stunning 22lb mirror!

I've seen a lot of pictures of mirrors, but they are way prettier in person. Wow! I'm floored... How do some folks out there think these fish are ugly, I have no idea? Not only does it break her personal best by 5 lbs, it's so pretty! Melissa was as giddy as a school girl, so happy! Besides maybe having some fisherman’s envy, I'm very happy for her as well. The thought was "all my hard work is going to be worth it". We got a special sunset as a reward that night too.

Almost exactly 1 hour later, my left rod alarm screamed off... Whoop, my turn!

As I picked up my rod, I realized this isn't a small fish! With my 3.25lb rod bent double, I can't slow her down; never had to let a carp just run like this - WOW! This is different from what I’m used to back home. It took me over 15 minutes to get this girl into the net.

Melissa looked over at me and all she could say was "Honey, she is huge... "

Now I've spent 3 years in Montana looking for fish over 20lbs, it's been a struggle. This fish was over 30 and also my first ever mirror! That’s an awesome combination in anyone’s book! Now I'm finally in "The Mirror Club" as Melissa says. Not only that, but it is over 30 lbs!

By this time it was dark and we all want great pictures but the problem is that the water was super shallow and I'm always hesitant to keep any fish, especially one this big in such shallow water overnight. Melissa echoes my thoughts... it's fine, night pictures will do. I remember thinking to myself, this place is already special and we just got here!

Not minutes later, Melisssa's right hand rod rips off quite a lot of line- ok this is a little hectic, but it’s all good. A few minutes into the fight, Melissa decides to talk a lil smack "show momma what ya got." I gave her the look of "be careful what you wish for." As if the carp heard her, she showed my wife what she has. Lesson?? Don't tempt karma… It took another 15 mintues before I could net this fish, it's larger than mine! Holy smokes! The grin on Melissa's face was unmistakable, even in the dark.

We didn’t know it yet, but this was the end of our first day, the carp just turned off. An hour later we hit the sack expecting an alarm in the night, but it stayed very quiet. It was all good, I’m told I snored so loud, I probably scared them off.

Day 2

I woke up a lil later than I’d planned and the sun was already pretty high by the time I finally checked my baits. Even though I slept well, I felt fairly groggy from the long day yesterday and to be honest, slightly disappointed that we didn't pick up a fish over night.

Well, I went back to the thinking that “they can be finicky.” It was right at 10 am when the carp showed back up and Melissa landed a nice 20 plus. I ran into a spell of bad luck over the following 3 hours and lost 3 fish. The carp were showing all over, full breaches. The sun was high with very few clouds and we got into the mid day lull in the action. We waited patiently for them to get back on our bait but didn't get another carp landed till 2 pm; another another 20 plus fish for Melissa!

My wife is still on cloud 9, as she lands another less than an hour later. I finally land another fish at about 4 pm. I remarked to Melissa "we haven't caught less than a 20lb fish yet". So of course, I break my own rule of not temping karma, and my next fish, a little over an hour later was a whole 3lbs. Not only that, but this lil guy somehow managed to give me the bird nest from Hell and I end up having to hand line him in. Yeah, I got irritated and it was my wife’s turn to smile at me for temping karma... but she reminded me "well, at least you DID land him." It went dead for the next 4 hours before we picked another mid 20 up right before we crashed for the night at 10 pm. We got 2 more carp during the night, both very nice specimens; One of them, another 30lb beauty! It was hard to sleep that night because the temperatures got very cold, down to the mid 30s. To us, snuggled into our sleeping bags, it was totally worth it though...

Day 3

I was thinking all that night, that we were doing well, the fishing had been steady but because the water was very clear in our swim, I was wondering if the bigger fish could see the hook? So, I decided to change my snowman rigs. We'd been catching very nice fish, but I want to see if I can get my wife and I some larger specimens. Fisherman's curse... they are never large enough.

I set my rig up so the hook is laying flat on the bottom with the baits right over the top, it turned out that this was a good decision. Day #3 quickly became our most successful day numbers and size wise.

The action started at exactly at 9 am; I picked up a nice fish, then my wife picked up 3 more over the next several hours followed by the typical afternoon lull that I now see, according to my log book is typical for our location.

Man, it got hot, summer had definitely started, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I ended up hiding in the bivvy most of that afternoon, we picked up a few fish and they were all gorgeous mirrors of course that this place is famous for.

At 5pm, I was off south about 200 yards on a rise trying to get some cell service to post a picture of my wife with one of our massive mirrors when I heard her scream, my left rod was absolutely ripping off. Melissa was right on it as I ran as fast as this big boy does back to the rods. She was fighting what was obviously another very large fish but she handed me my rod to continue the fight, very nice of her, she could have kept it.

After a long fight, she netted a beautiful 35 lb mirror! Holy smokes!!! We just stood there staring at each other in disbelief, this trip was gettin' better and better! I even had to put my elbows on my knees to hold this one, truly a teamwork fish. You couldn't wipe the grin off either of our faces.

We landed 8 more fish in the next 2 and half hours with several in the 30lb range. I guess my presentation change worked; I was very pleased and Melissa and I were both gettin' beat, we've never had so many large carp in a short time span.

At 8:20 pm I really whipped a bait out about as far as I could. It was well over a 100 yards and it didn’t take the the alarm long to sound. I was on it pretty quick and as I raise the rod I realize this fish isn't slowing down! I tightened the drag down several notches…it didn't matter, she just kept going…and I just held on…she ended up pulling over 200 yards off my reel. Thank God I had changed to big pits this spring! I was now at over 10 minutes of just holding on before I finally started to get some line back. For the next 15 minutes, I fought this big girl with all I had…. It was exhausting work and the longest battle I'd had in freshwater by far! Melissa netted this gem of a mirror, Holy Smokes she was a hog. We let her sit in the water for a good 10 minutes as this fight was exhausting on both sides of the rod. When I finally got her out into the cradle, we took pics, then weighed her on my tripod. "Honey, can you check... make sure I'm not seeing things". Just short of 38lbs!

I was in that mental state where I'm continuously laughing to my self, PURE JOY...is what I was feeling. It’s the same wonderful feeling even now thinking back to it as I write this.... What a fish! My friend Spencer had joked to me earlier that I'd catch a 40 lber. Not quite bud, close though!! As if fate had a sense of humor, Melissa caught a wee lad next, about 2 lbs. I'm shook my head, too funny!!!

We landed 4 more fish up through 11 pm when I pulled my rods in, I was so beat, I needed some sleep... what a day we had just experienced and to cap it off, there was another gorgeous sunset to enjoyll!!

Day 4

What turned into our last day dawned bright and warm. I checked the water temps, man they gotta be close to spawning. The fish weren't showing at all that morning, first day they hadn't and pretty much all morning was slow. It was 10:30 am before our first fish of the day showed up, another 20lb pretty lady, then we endured another 2 hour lull in the action before a nice sized shoal swung into our bay.

We caught fish steady all through the rest of the day, including another 34 lb mirror! Oh boy, we were happy fishermen despite it being dreadfully hot. I felt like a fried egg by 5 pm but the fish keep coming till a little after 8:30pm when it was like someone hit a switch, the carp either turned off the feed or had simply left the area. Melissa did pick up 1 more fish at 10:40 pm, a very nice 27 lb female to end the day.

We didn't know it yet but that was our last fish of the trip. We discussed if we should stay another day and we decided to let the carp tell us. If the rods were quiet all night, we would pack up in the morning.

The alarms stayed quiet all night and by the time I exited the bivvy in the morning, I could see pods of carp obviously doing their thing. Cool, we got our answer.

We slowly packed up camp over the next several hours and as I carefully drove along the road on the way out, I really enjoyed letting my thoughts marinate on what we’d experienced over the last few days...

If you have the opportunity to visit Blackfoot Reservoir, do yourself a favor and GO!!

It's not overrated. It's a carp fisherman's dream. Even arriving late on Memorial Day Weekend, we managed to find a secluded spot and have our best session ever. We managed 47 fish in 3 and a half days, over a 20lb average. This place is unbelievable.

I have to thank American Carp Society member, Spencer Powell and the co-founder of the American Carp Society, Wayne Boon for helping us prepare tactically for this amazing trip: The info you both shared was invaluable. You both have my deepest gratitude.

As Wayne’s American Carp Society Co-founder/partner, Sean Manning often states, "The fish is the Star" This is especially the case here at Blackfoot.

We hope you enjoyed reading about our special Blackfoot session experience!

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog! We Will Return…

Sam & Melissa Hicks