Carp on the fly

[nyFLYguy05 0]

Whats going on guys......question for those who fish for Carp with a fly rod....

 

 

Going to try Carp fishing soon, for my first time at some local lakes near me. Never fished for Carp before, saltwater fly fisherman tho. Was wondering if anyone could give me some good names of Carp flies - I can re-search them online and tie some up. Any other info would be great!

 

 

Thanks!

[Chefben4 0]

Headstand flies work great. Look it up on youtube, there is a good tying video

[Goduster 0]

I have 3 mainstays for carp. My overall best producer is a crystal white wolly bugger, then purple or olive SSL, and then a foam bread fly.

[Robert M 0]

Below are a couple blogs that will help with your itch and shorten the learning curve, many patterns are shown.

Like all things fly fishing it depends on the water you are fishing as to what patterns will work the best.

http://missouriflies.com/

http://fishingandthinking.blogspot.com/

http://www.flycarpin.com/

http://themrpblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.roughfisher.com/

 

Try seining the water, substrate you will be fishing then go with patterns that mimic what you find.

My favorites are

Damsel and Dragon Nymph patterns, marabou damsels with a little flash and lake dragons with an orange hotspot, most of my other flies are orange in color and more or less mimic crayfish or dragon nymphs.

 

I have only caught a couple carp so take my suggestion with a grain of salt I'm a beginner too.

[Peterjay 0]

A friend of mine in Idaho used to chum for them with popcorn and catch them on white hair bugs and poppers.

[bullship 0]

It depends on your water a lot. They're not necessarily picky as far as realism is concerned, but size and color can make it or break it. Sometimes they're really spooky....others they'll eat a white wooly bugger right next to the boat. I mostly fish smaller patterns with orange as the predominant color, but there's a ton of room for experimenting, and I would say presentation is the most important factor. I'm not a fan of chumming because the whole point of chasing carp is the challenge. Hell, we could all chum for trout too, but nobody ever recommends that. For some reason though.....every carp related topic I've ever seen somebody recommends a bread fly.

 

I did a swap a little while ago through Mctage at flycarpin. There are some super heros of carp included in that swap(I'm not one of them). Check it out

http://www.flycarpin.com/p/fly-carpin-2011-carp-fly-swap.html

 

Here are a couple of mine:

 

 

 

 

Good luck and have fun! You will soon be an addict.

[jhammer 0]

When I first got into them, I used size 8 woolly buggers in rust brown, olive, and black. I've caught a lot of carp on buggers. (Plus, everything else eats them.) I've tied and fished with all kinds of carp flies and sometimes, the bugger still comes back to save the day.

[JSzymczyk 0]

#8 woolly worm, brown, with either brown or grizzly hackle. Squirt it with crayfish scent from the bass fishing store. Done.

[TheCream 0]

#8 woolly worm, brown, with either brown or grizzly hackle. Squirt it with crayfish scent from the bass fishing store. Done.

 

I will 2nd the crawfish scent. Call it what you want, some people get their panties in a bunch if yu bring up doping a fly with scent, but on carp I do believe it helps. I fish primarily very murky water and fish seeing the fly is an issue. Black is my predominant color, because of the water clarity issue. In cleaner water I also like olives and craw orange colors. Mike's Carp Candy was my #1 producer last year. Very simple fly, rides point-up, carp hammered it.

[bluegill576 0]

Since you are a saltwater fly tyer already, try some scaled down versions of redfish flies. This is mostly what I use.

[Piker20 0]

Interesting the guys that spray a scent/flavour on the fly. If you wanted to catch a carp cause dinner depends on it, a piece of cork glued to a hook and dipped in marmite or jam or any sticky sweet or savoury flavour will attract one. The same of a sinking fly if you left it to settle at the bottom. They'll sniff it out and hoover it up. If you bait up with sweetcorn for a day or two before fishing they'll be queuing up for a fly the right shape and colour. Thats not knocking those that choose that option. I spent many years bait fishing and still do if its going to get my line pulled.

If you're looking to trick one into taking your fly then any of the cotton seed flies, daddy longlegs, greywulf in bigger sizes. hot spot shrimps, bigger scuds etc. You'll be surprised at the size of carp you can land with a forgiving fly rod. So long as your leaders above 10lb and plenty of backing you'll have a ball.

[Phish 0]

I certainly didn't need any scents on my woolly tube fly to get this 28" bad boy while fishing for steelhead today.

 

[Piker20 0]

very pretty fish. The anal fin is HUGE on that fish. Is this the norm with the carp over there or just a one off on that fish. I can only imagine the power that fish must get from a back end like that. And when it grows into a big one it would be a monster.

What size on average are you guys landing on the fly. The best I have in UK is 19lber.

[Phish 0]

Correction concerning the picture as it is acyually a white sucker. Still a great battle on a 6 wt.tho

[bassbuster 0]

Correction concerning the picture as it is acyually a white sucker. Still a great battle on a 6 wt.tho

 

 

What fly did you get that sucker on? I'm going up to the Upper peninsula of MI for a week and plan on doing a lot of casting. I kinda want an idea of what they are looking for.