Carp On A Fly

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When bass fishing watch for feeding carp because they are a great challenge and fight like crazy!!

Every day when we are on the river fly fishing for bass we keep an eye out for carp.  They are very wary and give a great fight when you hook them.  A 20 pound carp can strip most of your backing in just a few seconds, then when you get him on the reel he may make several more powerful runs, testing your fish-fighting skills as if he were a huge rainbow trout on the Yellowstone River.

In the shallows I often spot carp tailing as they feed on the stream bottom much like a tailing bonefish.  My most successful tactic on the “tailers” is to wade in well below them and cast up and across at a 10 degree angle to them dropping my fly 10 feet upstream of them.  I let this drift naturally to the carp and watch him for his strike.  Productive flies are the Murray’s Olive Marauder 8, Murray’s Brown Carp 8 and Murray’s Olive Carp 8.

In sections of the river that are three to four feet deep along the banks I frequently find feeding carp by seeing the muddy water which streams downstream from where they root out food.  A productive tactic is to cast my fly 10 feet upstream above the upper section of the muddy water.  I use a slow two inch twitching fly actin as my fly drifts to the “mudders”  suspected feeding station.  Here I try to detect the strike by feeling it.  The same flies I use for the “tailers” work on these “mudders”.

In order to land these carp I try to take up all of the slack fly line quickly and put them on the reel so I can be in control of the fight.

To brush up on your carp tactics watch our video