I'm after a bit of advice....

I'm being taken carp fishing in a few weeks time at a lake somewhere around the Stockbridge (Hampshire area) and having not done this before I'd like some general advice on tackle, flies and techniques. Any info at all would be a start, where to find them depth & habits at this time of year, feeding preferences etc. The chap I'll be fishing with knows his stuff but I'd just like a few pointers to save me from turning up clueless

Cheers

Ben

There was quite a good thread about this a while back Ben:

Carp Properly On The Fly

Richard

I read an article in Trout Fisherman I think where they had shootout between a coarse and a fly fisher on a carp lake and the fly guy won.

He was using a bread fly which consisted of deerhair on a size 8ish hook. I think he used a stiffish rod, around an 8 mark and about 10 ft

Sorry I can't be more accurate but I got rid of the magazine a while ago.

Ben, you probably have done this already but check to make sure the lake owner will allow you to fish with a fly rod for the carp, some won`t as it upsets the guys camped out on the lake. Hope you have a good day anyway, there isn`t much in British freshwater that will fight harder than a carp on fly gear.
Good fishing,
Andy.

Maybe you could beat Skateboard Dave's 18lber on a 1wt! (see his post on that)

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The lake definitely allows flyfishing, the guy taking me is an experienced carp flyfisher, just after a bit of info to get me started, a few fly patterns would be good.

Many thanks

Ben

Ben,
If you intend trying to get the fish on top then loose feeding with bread or chum mixers is a good tactic to get the fish looking up but depending on the water and how hungry it is it may be a little early in the year for surface fishing just now. Water birds can also be a problem as they home in on loose fed biscuits. You can then fish an imitation amongst the loose offerings (calling something tied to look like a piece of breadcrust or a dog biscuit a fly is a bit of a stretch of the imagination imho). Simply spinning deerhair onto your hook will produce a workable mixer, or you could use the real thing grooved and superglued onto the hook shank. As for flies I have had success with patterns such as PTN`s, D. Bachs and bloodworm imitations fished static into and amongst weedbeds. Aquatic beetle imitations work too. You can use an indicator or watch the line for takes just like nymphing for trout. This kind of fishing requires strong tackle though if snags such as weeds are present, 7-8wt rods and 10lb leaders. The tackle can be stepped down if the water you are fishing is relatively clear but the important thing to remember is to use tackle that will give you a realistic chance of controlling and landing the fish without playing it for an hour and having it swim through other anglers lines etc. A guy to talk to on here is Skateboard Dave. He does a lot of fishing for coarse fish on the fly. I am sure if you drop him a pm he will give you some good advice.
Good fishing,
Andy.

If you're going to chuck in mixers and fish a surface bait imitation, forget faffing about with "flys" - you may as well by a pack of the floating plastic artificial chum mixers made by Korum, or some fake breadflake.

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If its do-able, allow about half a kilo of mixers to feed the birds up before you start fishing. One they've fought each other over them, and filled up on them, and the mixers start to swell inside they seem rather disclined to want more. NB. floating trout pellets make an alternative to mixers.

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