Every fly fisher that takes the leap and opts, voluntarily, to start slinging flies at carp eventually arrives at a moment of clarity. The garbage fish that have found their way into nearly every drainage ditch, irrigation canal and city settling pond in the country over the last 190 years becomes less onerous, more appreciated … even valued.

When we planned the trip, some eight months out, we had anticipated our timing to be near perfect. If things went as they should, we’d be hitting the water during the ideal week, just as springtime mayfly hatches really started to kick off — rousing the trout from their lingering winter lethargy, sending them in chase of the sort of bounty they hadn’t seen in more than half a year. We’d spend the week casting delicate dry flies to eager browns and rainbows on the region’s spring creeks and lake-fed freestoners.