the poor man's winter bonefish

[Lutz]

Equipped for trout this afternoon, I stumbled upon a section of stream with cruising carp all around. I've hooked them before unexpectedly on a midge, so I couldn't help but carry on with some winter sight fishing. I was able to get close and tight lined the bottom right under their noses. My 4wt and 5x tippet managed to land 2 out of 5 hooked carp; both were slightly over the 2 foot mark.

In addition, I met another kind fly fisher who was targeting trout just upstream of "carp central." Before he left we teamed up on a 14" holdover brownie. He sighted the fish for me and guided my blind casts from a better vantage point. Landed the brown on a midge as well.

This was easily my most exciting outing all winter. I highly recommend going for carp during winter if you have a mid to large size stream that doesn't freeze over. They were quite active and willing to eat today. Of course, if you have exceptional winter trout fishing maybe you have no need for this. If you want to mix things up though, give it a shot!

 

[dc410]

Nice job. Sounds like you played that situation perfectly. It's neat to take advantage of those kinds opportunities when they present themselves. I've never targeted carp in the winter. Most of my favorite carp spots are either under ice or have that much shelf ice developed at this point that they simply aren't fishable. I'm sure you had a lot of fun landing those fish on your 4 wt. Congrats!

 

[GenCon]

That is very cool. Great job.

GenCon

 

[J55tyger88]

Wow nice job. Thats a win for February.

 

[NickR]

Just another sign that spring is on the way... thanks for sharing.

 

[pete41]

In my experience the closest thing to a bonefish in freshwater is a tail hooked sucker. Since I was mostly a down and deep streamer fisherman when I lived in Montana I foul hooked many that way but always knew immediately what it was since nothing I ever caught in Freshwater made a long power run like that-then they folded.i guess I would have reacted the same way if jabbed in the tail.lol

 

[afishinado]

pete41 wrote:
In my experience the closest thing to a bonefish in freshwater is a tail hooked sucker. Since I was mostly a down and deep streamer fisherman when I lived in Montana I foul hooked many that way but always knew immediately what it was since nothing I ever caught in Freshwater made a long power run like that-then they folded. i guess I would have reacted the same way if jabbed in the tail.lol

The only thing close I've seen was once at a Jam, long ago, someone swiped Jack's bottle of bourbon and he took off after him.... :lol:

 

[raftman]

Did anyone notice that The Drake Magazine's editor write up a piece comparing Carp to Bonefish in the last issue?

Nice post!

 

[Lutz]

Thanks everyone. It was certainly a rush on the 4 wt. pete41, that reminds me of a sucker that actually took one of my large, articulated, swinging streamers in its mouth at night. I thought for a while it was my brownie of the season- boy was I wrong.

 

[martinlf]

Just looking around on the forum thought I'd take a glance at the warmwater posts (I'm typically looking at trout reports, and not all that often). Recognized this situation, and if the brown was sighted from a bridge I was the guy on the bridge doing the sighting! That's a great photo of the carp; I've caught carp there in the summer, but haven't considered winter. May give it a go one day. Tight lines, Lutz.

 

[jifigz]

I'm a little bit jealous....I still haven't caught a fish in 2015. I haven't had much time to get out there and try either.

 

[Maurice]

jifigz,

I think you'd be in the majority. Cabin fever is running much more fluid than the streams in PA for sure.

I bought a license Jan 1, fished Jan 2 (I think) caught one fish, froze my fingers, haven't been out since. My waders are still frozen hanging in the garage. I was thinking I had a chance to do at least a fish a month but I might have to lie about February. So remember this post when the Fish a month comes around in November.

It'll get better.