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Carp unlimited

Started by Woolly Bugger, May 26, 2018, 09:29:21 AM

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Woolly Bugger

#195

Early visit to the pond this very dark and overcast morning. The conditions were dismal in the flat light. I walked along the bank checking the many spots as I headed toward one of the benches where I set my coffee down . I saw some mud off the bank and peered I onto the stained water trying to separate shadows from reflections. I noticed a fish cruising slowly away and I cast my fly. It way dry and didn't sink right away and I was afraid that the fish would swim under it as has happened many times it the past. The fly got down to the fish and it turned and I saw the lips suck the fly and I strip set. Boom goes the dynamite! That makes number 10 for 2019!

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ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Stone-Man


Woolly Bugger

Carp numero 11 was caught this moring. It was a regular common that was cruising around and I got a difficult cast out in front of it and it turned and sucked the fly down and ran hard pulling yards and yards of line off the reel. It came back into the bank with some moderate resistance and then took off again halfway across the pond. I got the net ready as I brought it back into shore. The bank here is steep and about three feet above the water. I made several attempts to net it and then it took off again on a shorter run out into the middle of the pond. Fish was played out and I made another attempt to net it but I missed and it thrashed about and broke off, so no photo. Stuck around for another hour hoping to get number 12. It didn't happen despite having several good shots as they were cruising around the flats...
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

Just checking on last year's tally and I saw that I caught #9-2018 at the end of August, so I'm ahead of the game. The pond carp have just started their daisy chain activities and I've also seen lone cruisers for the first time this year. I had a couple of good shots this morning, one was a real heartbreaker, a large carp moved to the fly but turned at the last second . I really thought it was going to eat!
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Yallerhammer

I need to give that a try, there's a lake near here that's full of big carp. What fly patterns seem to work best, and what speed strip?
Women want me, doughbellies fear me. - Little Debbie Prostaff

Woolly Bugger

#200
Quote from: Yallerhammer on September 04, 2019, 09:52:03 AMI need to give that a try, there's a lake near here that's full of big carp. What fly patterns seem to work best, and what speed strip?

Read the Karp King's presentation

https://www.brfff.com/forum/index.php/topic,15343.0.html

They are all different and maddening

https://amzn.to/2zPsNzR

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Small crayfish, worms, baitfish, it's a match the hatch or what they are eating type of deal and it's either a "Drag and Drop" or very slow strip — it all depends on what your carp are feeding on!
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Sedition and Pockets


Somewhere during the course of the spring, I realized that I have become bored as fuck of trout.  Too easy.  Too predictable.  I needed a new challenge. 

I've also been preoccupied.  After decades of twisted self-denial, I've been out as a transwoman since early summer.  Living my authentic self has been the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life, but it has significantly disrupted the pattern of my existence, and left me without the time to pursue the long runs and all day expeditions that have been my bread and butter in recent years.  I needed fishing opportunities that I could pursue close to home and in short increments (and targets that weren't fucking trout).

What I found is a large local HOA lake full of grass carp that could on occasion be induced to take a dry.  It is a frustrating and maddening game, full of last second refusals and fish that jet off leaving only a plume of mud to mark their passage. 

More recently, a little exploration led me down to the small creek outflow below the lake.  It's a kinda cool spot, with the creek tumbling over a small cascade below the dam, a feature I've never before encountered in a warmwater flow.  Better yet, the creek is jam packed with both common and grass carp in gloriously skinny water.

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After almost two straight years of near constant rain, the weather here finally dried out beginning in mid-July.  The water levels in the lake have been steadily dropping for about 6 weeks, and this week, the lake no longer overtopped its spillway, and since the main release is bypassed to a feeder creek that joins the main flow a couple hundred yards downstream of the dam, when I arrived, I found that the spigot had been shut off so to speak. The first few hundred yards below the dam had gone dry, with the exception of the large pool at the base of the (now dry) waterfall.

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Even from high up the rock face, I could see a small pod of common carp trapped in the now gin clear pool.  I have mostly been skipping that hole on the way to shallower, less turbulent spots where it was easier to present a fly to the carp, but I wanted to take a shot at fishing some out and transporting them back to the lake before their shrinking refuge vanished entirely (or the oxygen became depleted).

This was easier said than done, and this may have been the most demanding fishing I've ever done.  To avoid spooking the fish in that tiny aquarium, I was forced to remain perched high up the rock face and punch in long and awkward casts from a concealed position. 

It took a few attempts to figure out where to land the fly to drop it down to where the fish were holding, but when I finally dialed it in, I watched a carp greedily suck it up and the fight was on.  I scrambled down the rock face with my net, somehow not breaking my neck in the process.  With nowhere to go, it was a knife fight from the get go, and I was grateful for the 18# tippet I employed.  I brought the fish to the net and was able to successfully release it to the lake.

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After fighting the first fish through every book and cranny of the bathtub, I slipped downstream to give the fish a rest.  Once I found flowing water again, I began looking for carp to stalk.  I found a massive (easily 30#+) female feeding aggressively in a shallow riffle and obtained a hookup o. the first presentation.  The fish jetted up and around a bend and smashed my tippet with contemptuous ease.

I continued to poke around, spotting a handful of mostly grass carp, but in each case, they spooked before I could present a fly.  After a while, I decided to work my way back to where I caught my first fish of the day.  I crept back up the rock face until I was able to slide into my concealing position once more.  The carp were showing signs of having settled down, and this time, I was able to get a solid presentation on the first shot.  Another est, another hookup, and another fish rescued and released back into the lake.

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As the sun began to dip along the horizon, I made a circuit of the lake looking for grassies on dries, but I found no takers.  I packed up my gear and headed home to clean up for the evening, my good deed done for the day.

Cheers y'all!

Dylar

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Dougfish

"Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here?
 Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change? "
Kelly's Heroes,1970

"I don't wanna go to hell,
But if I do,
It'll be 'cause of you..."
Strange Desire, The Black Keys, 2006

Woolly Bugger

grassies are fun... I've been denied so many tiems this week that it feels like i'm married.   d:b

had a solid eat this moring but the hook it #12 popped out on the intial run. #%$* @$^#&  n!n Hand anothe one track donw the fly and give it the once over, maybe it ate, couln't see to be sure. Back again another day....

ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Stone-Man

Keith
 Try a green Bully on The Grass Carp. I have had them eat it B/4

 JT

Woolly Bugger

Quote from: Stone-Man on September 10, 2019, 14:30:34 PMKeith
 Try a green Bully on The Grass Carp. I have had them eat it B/4

 JT

Just a comment on Dylers carpage, no grassies where I'm at, jis common / mirror carpage
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger


damn it's hot, I got down to the pond at nine and the carp were all over the place, spawning, cruising, feeding, mostly far out across the pond but I had a few decent shots, the fish ignored or spooked on my fly. I made a hundred cast, there were a few that turned and looked or followed but mostly it was total rejection. I decided to make one more walk down the bank before heading to find some relief from the heat. There was a pod daisy-chaining about 40 feet out and some of them appeared to be clooping I made many casts to the edge just outside of the group of sex fiends and then into the middle of a bunch that was porpoising and much to my amazement number twelve took the fly and the game was on.

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number 12, 2019


ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger

#207

Fin suggested a fly pattern called Sunndguaard's Voodoo Mule, looked like a bit of a pain to tie and I would have had to buy some more material, so I just ordered up a 1/2 dozen from discountfly. They arrived in a couple of days and upon inspection saw that they had a slimmer profile than what I had been tossing. They also had only a bead along with some foam so that they were slow sinkers.



I fished it on to days, the first time I had no luck, but today I was able to get one to eat. They have been ignoring the fly all morning but this one was cruising out about 35 feet along with a companion and took the fly and ran with it. Good fight, not the best, it kept trying to get into the bank but fortunately, there wasn't any cover for it to get tangled up in.

Here is numero 13 for 2019.

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ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Woolly Bugger


I've hit the pond many days, mostly in the afternoon, during the heat of the day. They are still spawning and I've tried to pick off cruisers with a clouser and other bait fish patterns, I had some follows but they lost interest after chasing the fly for 10 or 15 feet. Today I went in the morning, it was a little overcast and I found fish feeding on the bank. I still had a streamer tied on and cast that, it bonked the fish on the head and he was off. Changed the fly and walked the bank. Second fish was 2 feet off the bank and I cast a little too close and slightly behind, but the fish continued feeding as I stripped the fly in front of its face. It sucked it in and I set the hook. It ran hard against the tightened drag and it took a while to get it in as it ran three or four more times before it was ready to be netted.

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Number 14 for 2019!  d:b

ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

Big J

Bossman on a pond carp roll.