If someone had asked me 20 years ago what I thought of fly fishing for the common carp, I would have thumbed my nose at the thought. Today, I’m raving and ranting about the joys, challenges, and profound satisfaction I get from fly fishing for what is often referred to as the golden bonefish — the carp, introduced to this country as a food fish in the mid-1800s.
I love this species, particularly when I can wade and sightfish for them. I’m not alone. Dave Whitlock was writing about the joys of fly fishing for carp back in the 1970s. And well-known Southern California fly anglers Conway Bowman and Al Quattrocchi have been organizing and hosting a carp event called the Carp Throwdown at Lake Henshaw for the last three years. Bowman and Al Q have been carp enthusiasts for many years, promoting the sport as much as anyone.
A Little History
In 1877, the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, in concert with state fish commissions, began to establish populations of wild carp and even commercial carp farms throughout area waters. Because of the carp’s ability to live and propagate in almost every water condition, the species quickly spread. Today, they are found just about everywhere throughout the country — even in brackish waters. In California, they are found in many lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, canals — you name it — statewide, making them more available in both rural and metropolitan waters than any other fly-eating species.
A fish once esteemed quickly became despised by the turn of the century. They simply didn’t taste the same as the selectively bred European carp or most of the highly regarded native game species. Their propensity to cause turbidity in otherwise clear waters didn’t help, either. They are still not loved by a vast majority of recreational anglers, but that is changing fast, at least among savvy fly fishers who want to pursue a very challenging fish, one every bit as rewarding as flats bonefish and the coveted permit.
A Couple of Caveats
First, I want to declare that I am a rank novice when it comes to my personal experience fly fishing for carp. I’ve been doing it for only a bit over two years and only once or twice a month. What I know about the carp-fly game, I learned from my carp mentor, Dave McKenzie of San Jose, and from reading good books on the subject. I know of no one who is more experienced and who spends more time pursuing carp on the fly than Dave. He has ferreted out just about every piece of carp water from the San Francisco Peninsula to the Santa Clara Valley, including the Central Valley — and more. He is the consummate peripatetic carp fly fisher, and he is on them like a terrier on a rat.
It was Dave who took me on my first carp outing to a local Morgan Hill reservoir. He showed me a lot that trip and during subsequent outings, and he got me into my first fly-caught carp — not a huge fish, but one that made me beam like a star and that got me hooked on the game. I mentioned too, that I’ve learned a great deal from reading books on the subject. Accordingly, between Dave’s tutoring and reading a couple of excellent carp books and from researching fly-fishing for carp on the Internet, I consider myself to be well informed — learned, at least, in the various tackle, techniques, and nuances of targeting the common carp on flies. What I want to do here is share with you what I’ve learned about fly fishing for carp from my mentors, books, and personal experience and to encourage you to give this wonderful, deserving game fish a try on the fly.
Two Good Books
If you want to shorten the learning curve, pick up and read one or both of these two books: The Orvis Beginner’s Guide to Carp Flies: 101 Patterns and How and When to Use Them, by Dan C. Frasier, and The Orvis Guide to Fly Fishing for Carp, by Kirk Deeter. Both are excellent, but if I had to choose only one, it would be Frasier’s book. It’s extremely well-written and succinct, cutting to the chase in the most practical and efficient way. He tells you all the basics — the most important things you need to know about fly fishing for carp, including fly selection. It’s an easy read that will give you a superb start in the right direction.
The Challenges
Of the many things appealing to me about fly fishing for carp is the fact that they are not an easy fish to catch, and I’m not alone in this. Lee Haskin, a well-known fly fisher and fly designer who has caught just about everything that swims in fresh water and salt, has become absolutely obsessed with carp the last couple of years. While they are frequently compared to flats bonefish, he believes that bonefish are considerably easier to feed a fly. I’d rate carp right up there with flats permit in that regard, and so does Lee. They can be every bit as finicky, and your fly and your presentation both have to be right the majority of the time.
Fly Choice
The carp, at least the common carp, is truly omnivorous. It can thrive on vegetation, animals, and fish, as well as on clams and mussels. Carp also love crayfish if they are available. Fly choice depends on what they’re eating at any given moment. Dan Frasier’s book breaks down carp fodder into five categories: meat, nymphs, dry flies, “super meat,” and “universal.” Included in the meat category are crayfish, worms (of which there are a couple hundred species, aquatic and terrestrial), and clams and mussels. Nymphs include all the traditional nymphs — mayflies, caddisflies, midges, and dragonflies and damselflies. Dry flies are the floating versions of those just mentioned, including the very important terrestrials — ants, beetles, and hoppers. “Super meat” includes large crayfish and baitfish. “Universal” food forms include eggs, berries (or other fruit or nuts) and even popcorn and bread tossed onto the water to feed ducks and geese. You see this frequently at municipal park lakes and ponds, which often have a carp population. A lot of large carp have been caught on imitations of these snacks. Don’t hesitate to check out these municipal waters for fly-catchable carp.
To match the hatch, you need to determine what these fish are eating. Although the common carp will eat just about anything at any time, it will focus on particular food items available in abundance. If you are looking at a shallow flat and notice a great number of mud plumes, it’s likely the carp are digging for worms — aquatic or terrestrial. Often, carp can be found feeding on a flooded flat following a rain, sucking up worms that were washed into the water.
Until I read Dan Frasier’s book, I didn’t realize what I was seeing on a flat covered with softball-sized pockmarks, which I learned were likely made by carp grubbing for clams and mussels. The other major clue was a bottom littered with crushed shell fragments.
If you are stalking a shoreline, particularly in late spring following the spawning and hatching of a variety of fish fry, including carp fry, and see a lot of schools or shoals of small baitfish, consider matching the baitfish hatch.
I’ve pretty much known that carp like crayfish, but you need to know when and where to give a crayfish pattern a try. You won’t find many crayfish crawling around in open water or over sandy or muddy bottoms. Crayfish like rocks to hide in, and rocky areas are where you are most likely to find carp feeding on crayfish in lakes. Of course, many freestone creeks and rivers are loaded with crayfish. Most of the waters I’ve fished in the Santa Clara Valley and in the Central Valley have a little of everything I’ve mentioned. Given this, I asked Dave McKenzie about the flies he uses to cover most situations. Here’s what he said: “Dan, I catch about 75 percent of my fish on ’Buggers and Clouser’s Swimming Nymph. I get a few on dries and a good number on soft-hackle patterns in clear water. The Back Stabber is a fantastic fly, and I have been doing well on river carp on them the past couple of years.”
It’ll take me years to catch half the number of California carp that Dave has, and I’m not going to argue with success. My fly boxes contain a variety of Woolly Buggers in black, olive, and rust and in combinations of these colors, ranging in size from 8 to 4. I also have some in hot orange. I carry various dragonfly and damselfly nymph patterns in the same colors and sizes. Lately, though, I’ve been turned on to the Hybrid, a combination of Woolly Bugger and worm fly, which I believe suggests a filtering clam. I also highly recommend the foam-tail head-stand worm in various colors and sizes. The tails of these flies, made from disks of foam strung like popcorn on a piece of braided line, float perpendicular, standing the fly on its head, tail wagging in the currents or bobbing a bit when twitched. Reports from experienced carpers who use this fly at the appropriate time swear by it. There are now some in my box, along with the Hybrid and another version called the Head-Stand. Bugger styles with weighted eyes and rubber legs are deadly at times, as well.
Of course, I have a box of dry flies, including caddises, ants, and grasshoppers, especially hoppers, which are readily available to carp in most lakes and rivers during the summer — ditto for ants. Evenings on slow-moving river flats and on some lakes can produce a prolific caddis hatch, which carp will key on them, too.
One of my hands-down favorite nymphs is one of my own design that I call the Dragon Bugger, a blend of dragonfly nymph and Woolly Bugger with a dark (usually black) foam wing pad and bead-chain eyes, plus rubber legs. It’s tied on a jig hook, and the foam pad helps to keel the hook point upward and also to regulate the sink rate. I’ve caught just about everything in California on this style of fly, from panfish to trout and bass — even striped bass — and of course carp. One of my best days of sight fishing for carp in a Central Valley reservoir resulted in 9 big carp landed out of 12 hooked on the trusty Dragon Bugger. It was on a shallow flat, stippled with weed stick-ups and loaded with browsing, feeding carp. Many of those fish were double-digit, and I lost one that would have topped 20 pounds — it broke me off on a tree stump 150 yards into the lake. Most of them took me well into my backing. What a rush! I even managed to hook a couple of cruisers from deeper water on that fly. Cruisers are difficult to feed anything, and spawners are almost impossible.
Presentation
One of the first helpful presentation tips that Dave McKenzie gave me is what is referred to as “the drag and drop” technique. Instead of trying to place the fly where you think it will get a carp’s attention, you drop the fly in front of and past a crossing fish, or behind an oncoming fish and to the deep side of it so a hard splashdown is less likely to spook it. You then lift the rod tip and drag the fly, dropping it in front of the fish. This applies to both still and moving water. You sometimes wait for the fish to find the fly (or let it drift to it, if fishing moving water), you sometimes impart tiny twitches to get its attention, and sometimes a slow, staccato retrieve works. It depends upon what they are eating and how they are feeding.
Having flies of varied weight (sink rate) is important when fishing subsurface. If a fish is grubbing/mudding/ tailing, digging out worms or clams or rooting out nymphs and crayfish, you’ll want a fly that drops quickly to the bottom. If the fish is “crawling” along, or just off the bottom, or cruising along a shore looking for food, you’ll want a fly that sinks more slowly, and while open-water cruisers don’t eat much, especially if they are in spawning mode, you can sometimes get one to take a fly placed in its path, especially if it has been eating damselfly or dragonfly nymphs or small fish fry.
Another thing Dave advised me to do is to try to move to a better position to make the best possible presentation, if you have the time, which you usually do. No fish likes a fly coming right at it in still water. It’s not natural and can spook them. Take a crossing fish for example: if you cast at a right angle past and in front of it and then drag and drop the fly right in its path, the fly moving toward it from its flank could spook it. The same goes for a fish moving away from you. It might be best to wade or walk well ahead of the approaching cruiser so a diagonal cast slightly behind and to the side can be made, dragging the fly from behind to a point in front of the fish. Of course if you don’t have time, take your best shot.
Seeing Them
One of the most difficult things for a carp-fishing beginner is seeing the fish, especially in turbid water, which is most often stirred up by their own feeding activity. I recall the first time Dave took me carping: the water was the color of cardboard, and while I think I have good eyes, I found quickly that in this situation, I didn’t. Dave however, knew what to look for, and he’d constantly say, “There’s one!” and make a quick cast to it. I’d look at where he placed the fly and couldn’t see a bloody thing. It took me a few trips with a little help from Dave before I started seeing fish. It could be just a subtle color change in the water, usually a bit darker and often shaped like a torpedo, maybe moving a bit, forward or even up and down. It could be more than one dark pattern, a couple or a pod of fish working the bottom. Sometimes it is a mud plume, stirred up by a fish grubbing the bottom, or it could simply be a bunch of bubbles popping to the surface like water just starting to boil. In fact, the last carp I caught was a bubbler. I couldn’t see the fish because of an extreme overcast, but I spotted the bubble trail and cast about a foot in front of it and slightly past, dragged the fly into position, and let it fall. The take was almost instantaneous. Tailers are much easier to see, for obvious reasons, but you have to pay attention and scan the surface carefully, since those tails don’t always wag like a flag.
When walking a bank or when wading a flat, move slowly, scanning near and far, left and right, always taking care not to step heavily or produce a wake that might alert fish to your presence. Stealth also is the order of the day when fishing from a boat — you don’t want to rock the boat when casting, sending out ripples that’ll spook fish. Don’t dress in brightly colored clothing, either — you want to blend into the shoreline, not stand out like a neon sign. If you see something that may be a fish, but you’re not sure, give it a cast. You won’t know until you throw. Above all, never line them!
Once you’ve fished for carp foraging in turbid waters and are able to spot them relatively easily, fish feeding in fairly clear or clear water will stand out like they’re spotlighted. There are a lot of carp waters that stay fairly clear or almost gin clear, even with a lot of bottom feeding going on. It depends on the type of bottom — mud, sand, rocky, grassy or whatever. I often stand on a high bank and take a careful look to see if I can spot carp before venturing to the shoreline, approaching stealthily, if I do. I’ve often spied carp with noses to the shoreline, singles or in groups, and have been not sure if they were feeding or just resting. Of course, I give them a try, making my cast standing well back from the shoreline. I’ve caught a few of these, but I have to admit that I ended up spooking most of them. It was sure worth a try, though, and the sight of them really got my heart racing.
Tackle
If you’re a trout fly fisher, you probably already have the tackle you need to catch carp. Any decent 6-weight to 8-weight rod lined with a weight-forward floating line and a tapered 9-foot leader to about 8-pound test will suffice. The reel should have a adequate drag to prevent overruns, since flats carp will take you into your backing most times.
When it comes to fly lines, I particularly like no-stretch lines that provides ultimate feel and contact. Carp can suck in a fly and spit it out in a blink, so being able to feel the take is paramount. Uplining the rod is also helpful, since a quick load is extremely desirable with the short casts that carping usually requires. Most will be under 40 feet, and some just barely longer than leader length.
Well, newbie that I still am, I may have left out something, but I’ve given you a lot to think about and more than enough to get started on a carping adventure. The main thing, though, is to get started — you won’t be sorry you did.
