Originally Published in
Country Anglin' Outdoor Guide
July 2004
The White Amur, aka grass carp, is a cousin to the
common carp.
The perfect fish,
if there were such an animal, would grow quickly and be adaptable to any
kind of water quality from cold to warm, alkaline to acidic. It would call
every state of our country home and be available to anglers in their
neighborhood waters. This fish would be able to survive on whatever fodder
nature and the contrivances of man made available. It would grow to
enormous size; measurable in pounds, not inches. The perfect fish should
fight like its mother was Tanya Harding and its father Mike Tyson. Finally,
and perhaps most importantly, the perfect fish would have to be smart and
capable of demanding the sportsman’s most refined prowess; it must not come
easily. If such a fish were available, would you fish for it? Perhaps
you'd even come to obsess over it?
The
common carp (Cyprinus carpio) was introduced to the waters of North
America during the second half of the nineteenth century. Its success in
exploiting any available ecological niche is legendary, its ability to
survive and flourish is a topic of reverence in many cultures. The carp is
at its most abundant in fertile, low gradient, warm streams and rivers,
lakes and ponds – the kind of water that can be found at every turn of the
road in Ohio and elsewhere in the Midwest. Despite water quality varying
from the pristine to the polluted and in the face of bow fishing, poisoning
by rotenone, natural disease and the general contempt of the less
enlightened angling community where it is often referred to as a “sewer
bass”, the common carp has not simply endured and survived. It has
flourished. The carp is big, strong, tough and a hard fighter. Further,
this giant goldfish may be one of the most difficult and challenging of all
freshwater targets for the long-rod enthusiast. The common carp is, indeed,
a near perfect fish!
My
first carp on a fly came as a something of a surprise, an experience I have
heard echoed from many a fly fisher. I remember the day quite clearly. I
was fishing a smallish bead-head nymph on a long, 4X leader through the deep
and narrow runs of the East Fork of the Little Miami River. It was a dry,
hot August day and I had been catching 8 to 10 inch smallmouth pretty
consistently. They were tightly packed in the well oxygenated waters of the
quick runs due to the extreme heat and a severe low-water condition. The
gentle tap-tap-tap belied the size and power of the fish that would take
that little nymph, run my fly line out into the backing, flex my four weight
to the breaking point, and leave me shaking and wondering what had just
happened. I was hooked far more deeply than any carp ever would be!
If so many folks
hook their first carp as a surprise (some would say “mistake”), why does it
become so difficult to do it again on purpose? There-in lies the
conundrum that is carping on a fly. The carp is happy to feed in shallow,
clear water. It does this during the brightest and warmest part of the day,
when watching these golden ghosts is an easy pass-time. Let’s remember,
though, that no fish gets to be an adult in the unforgiving aquatic
environment without showing a sublime level of caution. While you may be
able to see the carp leisurely swimming or even tailing and feeding, rest
assured the carp sees you too. And it knows you shouldn’t be there - in
that water. You can only get so close before you realize that even three
feet and twenty pounds of supreme predator can be spooked by the flash of
your fly line in the air, twenty feet away. Too many times the only thing
the aspiring carp fly fisher sees is the powerful bow wave of a departing
target and the a large swirl of mud where its tail used to be!
Rule
One of successful carp fishing - Blend In!
Carp
are opportunistic feeders. For several weeks of
2004 I was obsessive about fishing carp with dry flies as they vacuum dead
and dying cicadas from the top of local ponds and lakes. You will often see
carp sucking cottonwood seeds and thistle seeds from the surface, or even
“smutting” small midges
and black flies from the surface of still water areas. With a sub-terminal
mouth, carp are certainly not designed for surface feeding, however. They
are built for rooting around in the bottom and if you want to be successful
you should show a carp something that lives at its own level. Nymphs and
crayfish are carp staples, the later being a creature for which carp
demonstrate a particular sweet-tooth. Rule two of successful carp
fishing - show them something they expect to see!
I was fishing
smallmouth along the crystal clear and very productive Ottertail River of
north-central Minnesota one
day a few years ago. Smallmouth bass to three pounds were responding very,
very well to a size 6 bead-head, olive wooly bugger drifted along the bottom
of the cobble-studded stream on a 3x tippet. I spotted a good sized carp,
perhaps 10 or 12 lbs, tailing along the bank and decided to show her my
fly. My cast landed lightly two feet upstream and one foot to the right of
the feeding fish. The fly entered the water gently and slowly sank to the
bottom of the gin-clear flow. The carp moved forward and hovered over my
fly, tilting gently down to take the fly from the bottom. With a sudden
swirl and a huge splash the fish bolted across the creek to deeper water,
leaving my fly - and me - covered with mud and ridicule. What happened?
Carp have an
amazing sense of smell and a very, very sensitive sense of hearing.
Additionally, a carp has no need for reading glasses. They can see as well
as any trout, and locate food underwater using a sensitive lateral line and
inner ear as effectively as any bucketmouth bass. Carp, if you’ll pardon
the pun, are not
suckers. They are selective to both pattern and presentation. If brown
trout were as consistently picky as carp, virtually no one would catch
them! If a carp is keyed in on a specific food organism, you must imitate
that organism to the finest level possible. The carp I met on the Ottertail River
that day clearly knew the difference between an impressionistic wooly bugger
and the dragon fly nymphs it wanted to eat. While the smallmouth were quite
happy to smack anything that looked remotely alive, the carp were far more
selective. Rule three - know what you are imitating and present it
with the utmost care!
Cowen Lake is among my favorite destinations
in southwest Ohio.
It’s a pretty little lake, with limited horsepower regulations and a fine
population of bluegill, bass, saugeye, white bass and carp. My canoe
floated silently along the bank as I fired cast after cast to the shallow
water, retrieving a size 10 Assam Dragon nymph imitation along the bottom
until it reached the deep break, just twenty or thirty feet off the wooded
bank. Bass to 14” or so had responded well, and I was having a blast with
my 5-weight fly rod and full-sinking Type III line tipped with a 3 foot
leader of 3X fluorocarbon.
I felt a gentle tap
on the fly and strip set the hook in reaction only to feel…. nothing. The
line didn’t move, the rod bending to a full curve. “It must be a log” was
my first thought. It was the only thought for which I had time before the
‘log’ decided to get out of Dodge! In the wink of an eye the full 90 feet
of my fly line had melted off my reel and backing was disappearing at an
alarming rate. 150 feet of line screamed off the reel in a staccato run
when the little fly reel decided it had had enough. It froze as its bearing
locked tight. The line came super-tight in a heartbeat, and I heard a
sickening “CRACK” as the graphite of my rod parted from the strain. I less
than a minute my reel was trash, my rod broken, my fish lost, my pride
bruised. Carp are big, strong and very hard to control. Rule 4 of
successful carp fishing - use gear suited to the task if you intend to be
successful. A six weight fly rod and a reel with a well maintained
disc drag should be considered the minimum acceptable gear when one
is targeting carp. 100 yards of backing is barely enough if you fish lakes.
Thanks to Mark Blauvelt for the image below - this is a typical Midwestern
carp and it's easily strong enough to test your best tackle!
“In my opinion,
carp are a supreme fly-rod challenge, equal to or excelling selective trout,
bonefish, or permit in difficulty to take on a fly. To be successful
hooking carp on flies, one must be very skilled at fly selection, casting,
presentation, and fighting fish… They tested us, they fascinated us, they
amazed us and they thrilled us.” These are the thoughts of master fly
angler Dave Whitlock in his preface to Carp on the Fly, A Flyfishing
Guide (Spring Creek Press, ISBN 1-55566-207-2). Do you think you are up
to the ultimate challenge in fresh water fly fishing? If so, don’t bother
with a plane ticket or travel agent. Just head to the local fishing hole
and prepare to be humbled.
The
common carp (Cyprinus carpio) was introduced to the waters of North
America during the second half of the nineteenth century. Its success in
exploiting any available ecological niche is legendary, its ability to
survive and flourish is a topic of reverence in many cultures. The carp is
at its most abundant in fertile, low gradient, warm streams and rivers,
lakes and ponds – the kind of water that can be found at every turn of the
road in Ohio and elsewhere in the Midwest. Despite water quality varying
from the pristine to the polluted and in the face of bow fishing, poisoning
by rotenone, natural disease and the general contempt of the less
enlightened angling community where it is often referred to as a “sewer
bass”, the common carp has not simply endured and survived. It has
flourished. The carp is big, strong, tough and a hard fighter. Further,
this giant goldfish may be one of the most difficult and challenging of all
freshwater targets for the long-rod enthusiast. The common carp is, indeed,
a near perfect fish! 
My
first carp on a fly came as a something of a surprise, an experience I have
heard echoed from many a fly fisher. I remember the day quite clearly. I
was fishing a smallish bead-head nymph on a long, 4X leader through the deep
and narrow runs of the East Fork of the Little Miami River. It was a dry,
hot August day and I had been catching 8 to 10 inch smallmouth pretty
consistently. They were tightly packed in the well oxygenated waters of the
quick runs due to the extreme heat and a severe low-water condition. The
gentle tap-tap-tap belied the size and power of the fish that would take
that little nymph, run my fly line out into the backing, flex my four weight
to the breaking point, and leave me shaking and wondering what had just
happened. I was hooked far more deeply than any carp ever would be!
Carp
are opportunistic feeders. For several weeks of
2004 I was obsessive about fishing carp with dry flies as they vacuum dead
and dying cicadas from the top of local ponds and lakes. You will often see
carp sucking cottonwood seeds and thistle seeds from the surface, or even
“smutting” small midges
and black flies from the surface of still water areas. With a sub-terminal
mouth, carp are certainly not designed for surface feeding, however. They
are built for rooting around in the bottom and if you want to be successful
you should show a carp something that lives at its own level. Nymphs and
crayfish are carp staples, the later being a creature for which carp
demonstrate a particular sweet-tooth. Rule two of successful carp
fishing - show them something they expect to see!
I was fishing
smallmouth along the crystal clear and very productive Ottertail River of
north-central Minnesota one
day a few years ago. Smallmouth bass to three pounds were responding very,
very well to a size 6 bead-head, olive wooly bugger drifted along the bottom
of the cobble-studded stream on a 3x tippet. I spotted a good sized carp,
perhaps 10 or 12 lbs, tailing along the bank and decided to show her my
fly. My cast landed lightly two feet upstream and one foot to the right of
the feeding fish. The fly entered the water gently and slowly sank to the
bottom of the gin-clear flow. The carp moved forward and hovered over my
fly, tilting gently down to take the fly from the bottom. With a sudden
swirl and a huge splash the fish bolted across the creek to deeper water,
leaving my fly - and me - covered with mud and ridicule. What happened?
Carp have an
amazing sense of smell and a very, very sensitive sense of hearing.
Additionally, a carp has no need for reading glasses. They can see as well
as any trout, and locate food underwater using a sensitive lateral line and
inner ear as effectively as any bucketmouth bass. Carp, if you’ll pardon
the pun, are not
suckers. They are selective to both pattern and presentation. If brown
trout were as consistently picky as carp, virtually no one would catch
them! If a carp is keyed in on a specific food organism, you must imitate
that organism to the finest level possible. The carp I met on the Ottertail River
that day clearly knew the difference between an impressionistic wooly bugger
and the dragon fly nymphs it wanted to eat. While the smallmouth were quite
happy to smack anything that looked remotely alive, the carp were far more
selective. Rule three - know what you are imitating and present it
with the utmost care!