Carp Refusals- Never saw a tougher fish

[cornmuse 0]

I've got a question that I hope the board can help me out with. I went out yesterday to try my hand at some carp on topwater cicada imitations. Unlike my adventure one week ago, yesterday was light breezes and high humidity, making for a much smaller number of bugs on the water. The soft winds also made stealth a real requirement for a successful approach.

 

I started fishing a cicada imitation which was productive for me last week. The first fish I cast to I led it a bit and splatted the fly down about three feet in front and slightly to the side of her cruising path. She whirled and came towards the fly, rising in the water column. As her nose broke the surface she turned and bolted as though my fly said something! Left a giant boil and was gone.

 

A bit later the same presentation resulted in a positive take from a fish. Then further on, another refusal at the very last second. One fish was rising away from me and, I believe, came in contact with the tippet before the fly and bolted. Many came up and just stopped about 2" from the fly and turned away quickly.

 

End result - 9 top water rises from BIG carp, three takes, one hook-up which snapped my tippet after a run into some underwater brush.

 

Now I used about half a dozen different patterns and I noticed the carp responded better to a pattern that was just a bit larger than the live cicadas. It is important to note that I took largemouth bass on ALL the patterns I tossed. Fish between 12" and 17" were "tough" to keep off the hook. But the carp were maddeningly difficult with these last second refusals!

 

What do you think is the source of the refusal? Scent (some of the flies had caught multiple bass and were slimed - no correlation to refusal rate)? I also crushed a cicada and rubbed it onto the fly and didn't see any particular improvement in take rate.

 

Visual cues? Can a carp even see something right in front of its nose? Does it have stereo vision? Can it focus that close?

 

This is on a small lake (35 acres) - maybe some kind of "micro-drag" on the fly? I tried fishing a taught line and also throughing some pile casts and feeding slack to keep any minor currents caused by the wind from inducing noticeable drag.

 

Suggestions are quite encouraged, there is about two more weeks left of this amazing top water fishery and I'd like to puzzle this one out.

 

Joe C.

[Guest]

Until some of our Carp guys chime in, my guess is just the natural wariness of Carp. I've never known anybody to get every Carp they were after, and it sounds like you actually had a pretty good day. Is your take percentage normally higher than that?

 

My first thought was scent, but if you rubbed some bug juice onto your fly, that kinda defeats that notion. Sounds like you really thought it through well, you just ran into some very wary Carp.

[lanvaettir 0]

Sounds like a pretty good catch rate for slow water and wary fish. On the San Juan or the Green river below Flaming Gorge 1 in 10 of the big trout might take after examining the fly. What kind of cicada pattern are you using? I've noticed that trout in slow water will swim quickly up to the fly and then really look at it. On the Green river the cicadas have orange between their segments and cicada flies with orange thread worked best for us on slow water. All cicada patterns took fish in faster water. I also was able to entice fish in slow water into striking with a REALLY small twitch when the fish got close. GOOD LUCK!

[Guest]

 

 

Try rubbing a little vanilla extract on the fly.

[dabalone 0]

I have been catching carp all my life. For channel catfish carp innards are unbeatable. Catching "bait" in clear water I have observed carp of all sizes hover over my worm and repeatedly suck it in, mouth it and then spit it out all without me feeling the "bite". At times the best way to catch them was to watch the take and set the hook before they spit it out. This is with live worms and yet they sensed something was wrong with the hook and line attached and rejected it, but now I am thinking they have excellant eyesight and are actually seeing the hook in clear water as well as feeling it and with the two senses together telling them not to take it. The only carp I have taken with my flyrod has been on wooly boogers in "dirty water" fishing for bass.

 

Maybe this is just intelligent wariness in the species because it seems to be the same all over the country. Then on the other hand I have caught them when they just mindlessly ate my worm as fast as it hit the bottom, but that was always when they were schooled up and in dirty water with no visibility. Maybe clear water just heightens there wariness for anything.

[Pujic 0]

Joe,

 

Despite some controversy carp do have excellent eyesight, unlike many other barbed fish species. That combined with their sense of smell and "touch" they get from their barbs gives them superb sensory skills, allowing them to pick up on the slightest of inconsistencies.

 

Were the carp you were casting to cruising? Personally I find that I hook way less crusing carp than those which are close to shore feeding or are just plain stationary. A good tip given by catchandrelease was to try casting smaller, animated nymphs to the crusing fish. A weighted rubber legged nymph was suggested and I can tell you that after trying this method I finally hooked a cruiser.

 

Try switching to 8lb or even 6lb flouro if the water is very clear. As with many other species, carp feed mostly on subsurface food sources, so even through you may see 3 or 4 carp feeding on top, there may be a whole bunch scouting below for food so give nymphs a shot - unless of course it's topwater action you want.

 

Best of luck!

 

 

[cornmuse 0]

QUOTE (lanvaettir @ Jun 10 2004, 12:01 PM)

>>Snip<<What kind of cicada pattern are you using?... On the Green river the cicadas have orange between their segments...

Magicicada septendecim has broad bands of orange, M. Cassini is the smaller, all black bodied cicada you will see as part of Brood X. The Rush Run pond has a larger population of M. septendecim than cassini, though both are present. The former is also a noticeably larger than the later. I believe the carp are keying in to some degree on the M. septendecim.

 

That said, I guess I am surprised at how picky these carp are. The refusals are very last second - the fish is just about to take the fly and turns away quickly. I know I am not spooking them; tough as it is I am holding completely still and watching this take place. I also wear very muted colors. My experience with most warm water fish is that they are much more foregiving of minor "mismatches" than heavily fished spring creek trout; which in my mind are a more visual feeder. I find it hard to believe that the carp can even see a fly when it is that close, kind of like a pike where they lose the bait when they are right on it because they don't have stereo vision directly in front of the nose. A natural blind spot, so to speak...

 

I am tying a new batch of cicada imitations. The fly I have had the most success with is my own "Joe's Cicada" pattern. It is pictured in the attached. I have also done very well with a deer hair bug tied with long, orange speckled sili-legs and a black cigar shaped body on a size 4 mustad 3366. I'll report on further results as my research developes. I'm looking forward to Saturday to see if they behave differently again.

 

Joe C.

[cornmuse 0]

QUOTE (Pujic @ Jun 10 2004, 04:27 PM)

Joe, Despite some controversy carp do have excellent eyesight, unlike many other barbed fish species. That combined with their sense of smell and "touch" they get from their barbs gives them superb sensory skills, allowing them to pick up on the slightest of inconsistencies. Were the carp you were casting to cruising? Personally I find that I hook way less crusing carp than those which are close to shore feeding or are just plain stationary. A good tip given by catchandrelease was to try casting smaller, animated nymphs to the crusing fish. A weighted rubber legged nymph was suggested and I can tell you that after trying this method I finally hooked a cruiser. Try switching to 8lb or even 6lb flouro if the water is very clear. As with many other species, carp feed mostly on subsurface food sources, so even through you may see 3 or 4 carp feeding on top, there may be a whole bunch scouting below for food so give nymphs a shot - unless of course it's topwater action you want. Best of luck!

The carp I was casting to were cruising solo or in groups of two along a shore line. They were clearly in a feeding mode as, from time to time, a carp would hoover a cicada from the top right near me. I didn't cast any nymphs to them, though perhaps I should have. I was just jazzed on carp on a topwater. Big carp, no less. The one fish I stuck on Wednesday and lost was a solid 20lb fish.

 

I was using Maxima clear 5lb test tippet. That is way too low for the kind of cover in this pond, which has a lot of standing timber. I have attached a picture. I used the 5lb in the hopes that a miracle would happen if I stuck a 30lb fish; maybe I could keep it on the line. It's doubtful, but landing the fish isn't nearly so important as having had an opportunity to land the fish, is it?

 

Tight lines!

 

Joe C.

[cornmuse 0]

Okay, figured out the images issue. Here is the picture of Rush Run.

 

Joe

[Guest]

Now THAT'S some tough looking water!

 

This is all good reason why Carp are nicknamed "Golden Bonefish". Any of you salt anglers out there who've fished for Bonefish care to give an opinion based on what you've been reading here about Carp in comparison to the techniques used in fishing for Bones?

[sandflyx 0]

THEY ARE TOUGHER THAN BONES !!!

[Robert Burton 0]

[cornmuse 0]

Now that's a nice carp on a fly! Looks like you were using a clear line? What did the fish take?

 

I worked out few different cicada patterns (though the bugs are all but gone now - maybe another week of opportunity before the fish forget to look up) and found that the carp were, indeed, quite selective to the two different body sizes and colors of the two species of periodic cicadas. Amazing...

 

Joe C.

[Robert Burton 0]

Ya it is a sinking ghost tip. That fish took a streamer but outside of mullberries, cotton wood and chumming...I would suggest you start with small crayfish patterns.