Shmogley said:
Hey TCP! nice fish!
can one of you who knows send me some info about how to go for carp on the fly?
like what kindof gear you had and maybe some flies that are known to work?
ive been focusing on upping my fly game this spring and carp would be an awesome target to practice handling big fish
Hey,
The fly you would use for carp depends on what they are eating of course. In a smaller creek I would use a san jaun worm or a small buggy looking thing like a carp crack from roughfisher.com .
In bigger rivers and small lakes you can use bunny leech and crayfish patterns when they are feeding more aggressivly. The fish is omnivourous. Big lakes require big flies, like large leech, or streamers .
I normally use a hybrid soft hackle pattern by carponthefly.blogspot.com called the hybrid carp fly. its basically a soft hackle with a peacock herl body and a red chennile tail. hybrid of san juan and soft hackle. Almost always works for me on river carp. thats what the fish i posted there took. he turned and gobbled it up upon seeing it float down near his head first cast.
For the outfit, youll want an 7/8 wt setup. I use 20lb flouro leader of about 4 ' and a 1x tippet of about 4' from there. I have 30lb braid as my backing behind my fly line and its spooled up to the max on my large arbour reel, that way on the big lakes you can let the fish run that 100-200 yards they require without loosing everything
Tips: #1 you have to see it to catch it (dont bother with a fish that you cant clearly see)
#2 cast past the fish, feathering your line down to avoid a large splash, drag the fly on the top water to within 6 inches of the fishs head then let it drop. wait for the fish to move on your fly.
#3 dont bother with cruising fish, look for fish that are actively feeding on the bottom.
#4 when searching for fish, if you see mud clouds coming downstream, there is a carp upstream on the feed bag, get over there!
I got more tips, but those there are the essentials.
I normally cast to carp that are within 5-10' of me. you have to creep up on them without spooking them, it is absolutly essential to be able to see the fish take your fly, without seeing the take with your eyes, you will havea a very slim chance of catching anything. when you are on the great lakes flats, these rules dont apply, those fish will chase a moving fly.