dc410
Well-known member
D-Dog has me all wound up and focused on Carpin for the last few weeks. He obviously has it pretty well figured out. I, on the other hand find myself deep in the carp flyfishing learning curve. I have been fishing a local stream that has a good number of decent size fish working in one area. In the early mornings these carp are mudding, chasing each other around and every now and then feeding on something on top. There are that many fish working that the water is normally very off color due to their digging. I went to the vise last night and tied up a new pattern of crayfish fly that I found on the internet to try today. I added the gold Krystal flash and orange/black centepede legs for antennae and tied it on a size 6 heavy wire wet fly hook. I'm thinking it should work well for both carp and smallies.
A few early mornings this week I have effectively spooked almost every carp in the area by almost every means imaginable. These fish may look stupid but I assure you they are not. I have had many classic refusals but the fact that the water is murky makes me feel like I need to get the fly very close to the fish which generally ends up spooking them. I was about to give it up this morning and accept another skunking when I spotted an average size carp in some clearer water in the middle of the water column. I had to cast about 35-40' of line to reach this fish. The cast landed about 4' in front of the fish and a bit short. The carp turned toward the fly! One small strip and the fish responded to it. During the strip the end of my fly line stopped. I lifted the rod tip and it was "GAME ON"! When you lift the rod and have a solid hook set with 6-8 lbs. of thumpin' carp on the other end it is just a total adrenaline rush, at least for me. This fish was a good fighter but did tire fairly quickly. It was the first carp that I hooked up with on my new 8 wt. The rod worked great and I can't wait to get into something bigger with it. It's pretty cool to be able to confidently apply side pressure to a heavy fish and manipulate it away from trouble areas without popping it off. The 8 wt with a SMB leader and 2X tippet gave me plenty of equipment to "horse it" a little when I needed to. Anyway, I managed to bring it to hand and snap a few photos. It measured approximately 24 inches. Battling these big fish on flyfishing gear is a blast!
A few early mornings this week I have effectively spooked almost every carp in the area by almost every means imaginable. These fish may look stupid but I assure you they are not. I have had many classic refusals but the fact that the water is murky makes me feel like I need to get the fly very close to the fish which generally ends up spooking them. I was about to give it up this morning and accept another skunking when I spotted an average size carp in some clearer water in the middle of the water column. I had to cast about 35-40' of line to reach this fish. The cast landed about 4' in front of the fish and a bit short. The carp turned toward the fly! One small strip and the fish responded to it. During the strip the end of my fly line stopped. I lifted the rod tip and it was "GAME ON"! When you lift the rod and have a solid hook set with 6-8 lbs. of thumpin' carp on the other end it is just a total adrenaline rush, at least for me. This fish was a good fighter but did tire fairly quickly. It was the first carp that I hooked up with on my new 8 wt. The rod worked great and I can't wait to get into something bigger with it. It's pretty cool to be able to confidently apply side pressure to a heavy fish and manipulate it away from trouble areas without popping it off. The 8 wt with a SMB leader and 2X tippet gave me plenty of equipment to "horse it" a little when I needed to. Anyway, I managed to bring it to hand and snap a few photos. It measured approximately 24 inches. Battling these big fish on flyfishing gear is a blast!
