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Carp and Cats

3K views 15 replies 7 participants last post by  zimflo. 
#1 ·
Had a day trip and an evening fish already and the season just opened. Some good times and some not to bad fish.





Both fish were taken on a size 12 damsel nymph. What a riot!!!!!
 
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#3 ·
I wish someone would tell me how to catch a carp on the fly. My Country Club's pond is loaded and I mean loaded with 10-30 pound grass carp. What flies are they attracted to. I've tried many different nymphs even crazy charlies. No luck.

I did tackle a 6pd cat on my 3wt casting a san juan worm. Now that was fun.
 
#4 ·
Grass Carp are one of the most difficult fish to catch. Here are my thoughts on it. What do they eat, then figure out the best way to imitate it. There is a fly I tie which is quite easy and will take common carp when they are feeding on grass. A green Carey Special does the trick for me but what I do is go to the wool shop and pick out some wool the same color as grass. For the hackle I do one wrap of brown pheasent rump. That's it. Give it a go and let me know how you do.
 
#10 ·
I went fly fishing for carp today and hooked two under a mulberry tree. Both straightened the hook after a short fight. I was using #14 poppers (red) that I tied this spring for bluegills. If it was open water I would have been able to land them, but they both dove into deep weeds and I straightened the hook trying to pull them out.

The carp feed under that mulberry tree every summer, pretty much all summer long, so I'll have another whack or two at them. I'm going to tie up a special carp mulberry fly, on a stout non-bluegill hook, before I try again.

Oh, and I learned that under mulberry trees it helps to whack your fly on the water, just like a falling berry. When I soft cast the popper, they rose to it, but didn't take. When I whacked it on the water, they came running. The fights I had with the two fish put down the rest of them. I waited an hour but they didn't come back.
 
#11 ·
Popper -- good job! I've never fished the mulberry hatch for carp. I have caught a couple of fish with flies on top but they were small fish munching their way through the surface film. Haven't had the pleasure of seeing one charge at a topwater fly! Thanks for the "splashdown" tip. I hope I get a chance to try it some time.

Q
 
#13 ·
Here is a picture of one of the three carp I caught the day before yesterday. The fly is red deer hair spun into a little ball. How do you know when the mulberry hatch is on? The squirrels are up in the branches, picking berries and knocking them off into the water.

I tried casting this mulberry fly to carp that were away from the mulberry tree, and a few of them rose to it but wouldn't take it. This makes me think that they were looking for insects and will take a regular dry fly. The carp in this canal and a lake near me sometimes have very splashy rises, even with their whole bodies coming out of the water, so I think that they are taking insects.

 
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