One carp

[john montana]

Spent most of Monday working with a friend of mine from UT...horrid conditions for what I do, but we saw enough fish to get some clean looks. He managed to hook 5, and landed 3 average size fish. I left the rod in the car most of the day, but brought it out at our last stop. Saw one trail of bubbles despite the massive and ugly cloud cover, snuck close enough to make out a tail in the gloom, dropped a hybrid where I figured the head of the fish was and ended up with this guy:



1 for 1. hah...rough day, but always good to be out fishing, even when conditions are crappy!

 

[MikePierce170]

Nice waders

 

[igquick]

Holy?! How many lbs?!

I was out monday also, And was planning to bring the dogs but like you said, crappy conditions

 

[troutmasta]

Hats off sir!

 

[MikePierce170]

I think it looks around 39lbs, right igquick? :lol:

 

[igquick]

Its got to be in the twenties

 

[Van]

i think it looks around 39lbs, right igquick? :lol:

lol

 

[igquick]

I think you can easily make fish look bigger by having the head more forward. Nice use of the angles though

 

[john montana]

Not an intentional attempt to make the fish look bigger than it was...just a weird angle on the photo. I did use the scale on that fish and rounded down, it was 19 lbs. really nice fish, made some strong runs.

 

[eugene1]

Nice going, it looks like a hog!

Best,

 

[igquick]

Mike I'll let you borrow my scale next time we fish

So john have you caught them off a white egg fly?

 

[john montana]

I know guys that do that, but I think they are fishing to pond fish that are often fed (bread). Illegal to chum in OR, and the big C fish that I chase wouldn't likely see any bread or white eggs so I haven't even tried out here. The trick on the fly (Rule #1) is to know your forage. The wild fish out here eat mostly clams and nymphs...so i fish stuff like that.

My buddy in ID fishes Eggs almost exclusively in small ponds and catches carp regularly.

 

[igquick]

Hm...that must explain why columbia river carp dont like my white doughbait, and rather strike at corn

I've read that any fly that represents the white cotton on cotton trees nearbye can work great....is that true here?

 

[john montana]

Rule #1 for carp on the fly is Know your Forage. If you were to go out and throw a white dry (surface) fly on the water to carp that were tailing...you probably wouldn't catch anything. But if you were to go out and throw a white dry fly when the carp were actively eating cottonwood seeds from the surface, it would work well. I have only seen them eat cottonwood seeds on sauvie's island...haven't come across that on the big c, but I do find them eating berries on the big c in july. that can be a lot of fun. they hang out under trees and eat the berries as they fall in the water...pretty cool.

 

[igquick]

I dont know if I asked you about forage yet but, say I was able to catch bass and bluegill with a certain fly; would it also work on carp at the same location?

At this one pond I was able to catch every type of fish in it using white bread, since people feed the ducks and the bluegill with white bread...I was wondering if it goes the same with carp fly fishing? At this pond I caught bluegill, pumpkinseed, carp, bullhead catfish, channel catfish, and even a few largemouth and smallmouth bass using white bread

 

[MikePierce170]

I don't know the answer. But the carp always seem to be biting arrows for me :lol:

 

[igquick]

I don't know the answer. But the carp always seem to be biting arrows for me :lol:

Im thinking of buying a raft, and Im pretty sure there are waders at my other house so I could see what you see when u go carp hunting...about the raft though, would you still be able to see carp in a one person raft and shoot them? Im not planning on shooting them but t just seeing if I could fish for them from a raft....because I know you like to sit on you kayak like a chair if I remember right, and you could stand up in it

 

[john montana]

Bass and Bluegill are simply not as smart as carp. Bass in particular are ambush predators, and more important than imitating their exact forage is triggering the predatory instinct. Bluegill basically eat, or try to eat anything. It could still be true that a fly that works in one pond for those two would also work for carp, but it doesn't HAVE to be true. I personally think knowing the forage is crucial, so I spent a lot of time figuring that out. I would go to areas where carp feed and watch them, dig in the bottom to see what was there etc. I started catching more carp when I paid attention to this, and I started catching a LOT of carp when I figured out that their primary forage was clams. That bit of information not only affected my fly selection, but more importantly HOW i fish all my flies. In short, they don't have to chase clams, so I don't make them chase. San Juan worms and various nymph patterns are likely to work on any fish out here if presented properly to a feeding fish.

My four main rules that I follow to catch carp on the fly:

1) Know your forage
2) Don't cast until you can see the head
3) You gotta make 'em move (you want them to turn to the fly so you can set the hook when you see the head turn)
4) To catch more carp...cast at less (you want to cast at feeding carp...not waste time or risk spooking a non feeding fish that will spook the feeding fish)

 

[Throbbit _Shane]

Bass and Bluegill are simply not as smart as carp. Bass in particular are ambush predators, and more important than imitating their exact forage is triggering the predatory instinct. Bluegill basically eat, or try to eat anything. It could still be true that a fly that works in one pond for those two would also work for carp, but it doesn't HAVE to be true. I personally think knowing the forage is crucial, so I spent a lot of time figuring that out. I would go to areas where carp feed and watch them, dig in the bottom to see what was there etc. I started catching more carp when I paid attention to this, and I started catching a LOT of carp when I figured out that their primary forage was clams. That bit of information not only affected my fly selection, but more importantly HOW i fish all my flies. In short, they don't have to chase clams, so I don't make them chase. San Juan worms and various nymph patterns are likely to work on any fish out here if presented properly to a feeding fish.

My four main rules that I follow to catch carp on the fly:

1) Know your forage
2) Don't cast until you can see the head
3) You gotta make 'em move (you want them to turn to the fly so you can set the hook when you see the head turn)
4) To catch more carp...cast at less (you want to cast at feeding carp...not waste time or risk spooking a non feeding fish that will spook the feeding fish)

I could make a case bass that bass over 5lbs are a lot smarter then carp, except when in spawning mode. Ill agree that small bass are dumb as they come but once they get over a certain size they have some smarts to them.

 

[john montana]

Some smarts of course, but nowhere near the smarts of carp. Tons of studies to show that actually, but I am too lazy to dig them up. One study showed that an individual carp hooked on one source of food (say corn, etc) wouldn't eat that same food source for up to two months. That is crazy memory for a fish.

Don't get me wrong...I love bass. I spent half of today fishing for them...awesome fish.