Carp on the fly

Hi all, I wanted to open this topic as a bit of research into how many of you fly fish for carp and what flies/methods work best for you.

I have caught lots of carp on the fly.

Best patterns I have found are hoppers, daddy long legs and Pelletus vulgaris.

Something I've done a bit of too, mainly whilst on holiday in Devon, although I have done some locally...the bivvie boys don't take kindly to it though, so be warned.

My favourite fly for carp is similar to Ron's 'pelletus vulgaris'...it's just a ball of deerhair spun onto a hook, similar to the head of a Muddler. Tie them on various sized hooks...my smallest is on a 12, largest is on a 2. Can't for the life of me remember the make of the hook, but it has a slightly inturned point...barbless, of course.

Throw a few pellets in close to the margins to get the carp's attention, and then drop your fly just off to the edge...and keep your eyes on it at all times. When you see the big old pair of lips suck it in, count to three and then tighten into it.

Don't skimp on the strength of the tackle...I use a hefty 9' tip actioned rod, WF9F line, and a minimum of 12lb, sometimes up to 15lb for the shortish leader...about 6'-8' is ideal. I've tried using flourocarbon, but it and me don't get on, so now I use good old Wychwood Sub-Surface...it's never let me down yet.


Rich


[just done a search...the hooks are ESP Raptor]

Probably the top man for catching carp on the fly in England is Peter Cockwill. I wish he would write an article about it.

He often upsets the bivvy boys on one of the waters he fishes because he catches lots more carp than they do.

Where carp have been hammered on all the usual baits such as boilies and floating dog biscuits etc, they are going to be suckers for a well tied and presented imitation of an insect, particularly a terrestrial insect such as a daddy, hawthorn fly or even a common bluebottle.

I have lost count of the times I have seen carp, big ones too, take a floating insect off the top.

At certain times of the year they will also attack streamer flies and lures. Most of my fly caught carp were taken years ago whilst fly fishing for trout in a lake that held many very big carp.

Pelletus vulgaris by the way was first described by **** Walker in his book - Fly Dressing Innovations.

As you say Richard, it's just a ball of deerhair spun on a hook and clipped to shape.

Yep, very basic Ron, but by heck...it's effective. Deerhair can be dyed a multitude of colours, which is handy for us...some carp pellets are darker than others, so an almost exact representation can be made up.

Another way to fool carp is to use a cork ball slid onto a hook and just chopped about to roughen up the edges a bit...I confess to using that on a few occassions when things have been hard on a trout lake...












Do I need to get me coat????

I remember reading a **** Walker article once where he said the Edwardians made tiny lures like spinners and fished them for carp. Apparently, carp are partial to fry.

I have a few friends who want me to tie deer hair floaters to look like pellets. I haven't done it. I dunno, but to me it's not "fly fishing".

I have my own pattern of cranefly that certainly works better than many others I have seen used.

The tail and abdomen is platted bug yarn in a light brown colour and the hook, a standard straight short shank size 12 Dry fly.
The platting is the same as platt on girl's hair(three strands). I make the tail twice as long as the shank and tie in dubbed hares mask for the thorax. Legs are peacock herl- choose the slightly finer herls, double knotted and a badger hackle- quite thick- four or so turns with a whip finish in black for the head. You end up with a fly very much like the real one and the smaller hook and flexible body means the fish take longer before rejecting it.
The bug yarn isn't too buoyant but the hackle seems to sit it just right.

To start the bug yarn platt, tie a little half granny, this imitates the female end of the tail.

I think I'll give the daddy longlegs a try later in the season. There's a nice carp lake nearby me. But I will have to de barb the hooks.

I wonder how amny of the Carp boys would get onto this method, if it was 'emptying' their lake, while they blank.

Actually I'm being naughty, the answer is.....none.
























You can't cast 2 fly rods at once, and drinking Stella is a bit tricky whilst double hauling.

Let's face it Rick, carp angling in this country has to a certain extent become a cult.

You are supposed to have a bivvy, bite alarms, bedchair, fish with boilies and to use bolt rigs, baitrunners and to put your rod in a pod. Things like bivvy slippers, welly wipes, bivvy tables etc etc have become part of "The Game". Such things are part and parcel of "The Game" and the equipment costs a great deal of money. So much money that carp fishing is now an industry. Fortunes can be made at it by the suppliers of the equipment. Carp magazines are funded by advertisers who supply this equipment.

If some enterprising angler were to come up with a simple technique or even bait that would put Benson or Two Tone on the bank quickly and easily, or for example virtually empty one of the going carp fisheries in no time at all, you can bet that the mighty carp equipment empire would do it's damndest to get that bait or technique banned.

Too much in terms of revenue would be at stake.

I'm too old now, but when I look at carp waters where anglers often sit for days, weeks or even months for one bite or even no bites at all, I often think there must be an easier way.

The incredible thing is that a lot of today's carp anglers accept this.

But carp have to feed to stay alive, and some of them must feed big time, and when they do, it can't be so difficult to get them to accept a bait.

Perhaps the approach is all wrong.

I could be wrong in my thinking of course but when I fished seriously for carp, I considered I was doing something very wrong if I, and other friends of mine were not catching several decent sized carp in a session.

I once caught 31 carp in one night, all of them over 20 lbs, and all of them on simple baits like sweetcorn.

Yes Ron there is certainly a steryotyped approach by the modern Carp angler.

I fish for them a couple of times a year. I always choose days when they will accept floaters as this, without doubt, is the most effective way to catch numbers of medium/ large Carp.

It amazes me that they sit there all day with silent alarms, while I pull out half a dozen.

Why don't they use floaters themselves?? It's beyond me.

My best stab at it is that their pleasure is being sat behind the matching rods etc, rather than actually catching fish.

You have hit the nail on the head Ric.

My favourite way of carp fishing was with floaters, either fished in the margins or at distance with a bit of hardwood as a controller.

To a lot of them, carp fishing has become a fashion statement. Nothing to do with catching fish at all.

The commercial racketeers and gullable carp anglers are of course responsible for this. It's got so silly that you only have to put a picture of a carp on some ordinary piece of tackle and the carp angler will buy it at 3 times it's normal price of course.

Actually I don't blame the manufacturers, if the carp anglers are daft enough to buy such rubbish, who shall say them nay!

Ron

As long as it keeps them out of the way and off the rivers I'm happy.

Ric wrote, "You can't cast 2 fly rods at once..."

Hywel Morgan holds the record for the most fly rods cast at the same time:

66.

My regular fishing partner and friend A. Elliot of Leeds (formerly Derby) has taught me a great deal obout fishing for Carp on the fly and has himself perfected the method, regularly doing 100 lbs on commercial fisheries, but also fishing the larger gravel pits for individual specimens to over 30lbs with plenty of back up twenties. His principles I have also used to good effect with Carp upto 17lbs. They are as follows:

1) pick the right time of day, Evening or early morning are usually best and do not cast until you have the fish really 'mopping up' on the surface.

2) Use small pellets - Feed small pellets that you normally feed to pond fish. They are better than dog biscuits as the carp tend to keep their heads up longer, rather than with DB's where they generally take a couple before going back down. This is useful as a carp with his lips up, taking multiple baits cannot actually see the one he is about to take, Thus if you can land a bait closeby or almost on him you should do well. This is of course easier with a fly rod than any coarse method around (presuming the angler is a half competant caster) nd the fish are within range.

3) Counter-weight the hook you are using. As floaters (free offerings) sit in the surface film they take on water and sit lower and lower in the surface. Your 'fly' must also sit low in the water. a few turns of lead around the hookshank should surfice.

4) The fly itself need not be a fly. We've had best results by simply glueing two pellets to the back of the shank of a hook and covering them in superglue to ensure they stay watertight. Certain people will have issues with this and say its bait fishing with a fly rod. They'd be right, it is (I generally call this Fly rodding not fly fishing), but we do this simply because it gets more hook ups not more takes. Ultra bouyant dearhair and a number of other substitutes we've used including cork are simply too bouyant and can ride up out of a carp's mouth on the take, Especially if the take is delicate.

Thats about it really. My only other piece of advice is this. The method described is extremely effective for multiple catches of carp. Depending on the type of venue you may face opposition from coarse anglers with their 'heads in the sand'. My friend and I have had near fights from jealous 'matchmen' who've sat it out all day with a mountain of tackle and ledgered meat for a couple of fish, only to watch two people with fly rods come down and empty the place in the last two hours of light.

I have not been on FM for a while but this thread has reminded me how much fun i had catching Carp on the fly, all be it pellet imitations, when i used to fish at Rex Wards, Barlow.

However, a lot has changed since them days and i have not given it much thought since but i am definitely going to tie some patterns up, both wet and dry taking on board all the suggestions mentioned on this thread and give Carp fishing on the fly another go, i have found a nice quiet venue where the Carp go up to 20lb but there are numerous in the 6-12lb bracket.

Reading this thread has got me thinking so on my next visit to said venue i shall be leaving the Carp rods at home.

Shall i do an article on it?

Blimey Graham 66 at once, that's some feat!

Mind you, I bet he hadn't consumed the required gallon of Stella

Watch out Ric, the carp boys are everywhere! (not me).

Hywel Morgan, is that the guy who did it on the Matt Hayes show?

Watch out Ric, the Carp boys are everywhere!

Whats that all about Steve?

Quite simply guys, carp fishing, these days has been equated to a discrete set of rules.

Next time you are on the bank of a specimen carp water - not a commercial fishery - look at what the carp anglers are doing.

99% of them will have 3 rods out, each on a pod with bait runners and alarms attached. Examine their rigs and they will be fishing a standard bolt rig of some sort or other. Look at the bait and it will be a boilie of some sort or other, maybe popped up, maybe not. Look at the way they bait up and it will be with a spod, or if they are good at it, a throwing stick. The baiting up will be done with seed baits (they call them particles, why I will never know) or boilies as freebies of course.

I could carry on, but quite honestly, stagnation has set in.

The fact that they do catch carp has got nothing to do with the set up they use, or whether they are all that clever.

The common denominator to all the catches most of them make is of course: time.

They sit there, after they have put their baits in place, reading books, drinking, cooking, foregathering at one spot with their mates and in some cases not even discussing the fishing.

I repeat again - stagnation has set in!

I know a friend of a very good friend of mine. His name is Laurie Manns.

For a period of his life he was a bailiff at a very well known South Lincolnshire Carp Fishery. This water holds carp up to well in excess of 40 lbs.

In between bailiffing the water, Laurie used to do the odd bit of fishing.

When he did, he hardly ever failed to put numerous big carp on the bank, including several 40 lbs fish. He only ever used ONE rod and a few simple baits like sweetcorn or bread. All he ever did was stalk the fish in the margins.

He would often catch more fish in an afternoon session - he hardly ever fished at night - than all the big names and experts totalled in a month.

Laurie shunned publicity.

And I tell you no lie!

The reason he was so sucessful was that he never read the carp mags, nor was conned into spending lots of money on the sorts of things the carp mags woo you with.

He doesn't fish now, but he was probably the most effective carp angler in terms of time spent per big carp caught who ever lived.