At last they have started showing themselves!! damn weather has had them keepnig their heads down of late, last night managed my first fish for a few weeks, nice female commen of 12lb-20z, not to miss a chance while the sun shines managed to sneak of just after 5pm, returned home 7.20pm with three beauties in the bag, 12lb-14oz; 11lb-4oz and 10lb-10oz. Not sure how long this is going to last as some fish are obviously getting into spawning mode!! still there is always another day, providing the werather doesn't turn foul again??

Alan

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Alan

Nice work. Will be starting for carp myself soon. Any advice on leader construction, and particularly what flies?

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Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine,
No blood of living insect stain my line;
Let me, less cruel, cast feather'd hook,
With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,
And with fur-wrought fly delude the prey

Leaders ! I use a tapered contruction ending with 8lb tippet;

4ftx15lb + 3ftx 10lb + 18"x8lb

As for flies well the top points earner at this time has to be the spun deer hair dog biscuit, in a week or so when the willow blossom starts to fall and why the carp like to slurp on these is a mystery is a spun hair again to match, it needs some yellow content and from soft hair! after that if the Carp boys are using floating crust/bread a fly from 'Ramer shower sponge' available from Boots (chemists) works fine either than or something fashioned from rabbit/mink to resemble bread these all work fine when up in the surface.

Fish caught on Sunday evening, only positive take I had?? 12lb-2oz


Fish had yesterday evening, they were much more receptive, was not as sunny! helpes with the carp being able to see the line.







All these were taken on my Bloke 9# anything less and they would take me into snags and again would find it almost impossible to get off the bottom! plus extend the fight time, at this time of year when they are getting ready to spawn is not a good idea IMHO.

Hope you have a lot of success, they are great fun at the same time a little scary, esp on that first run!!!

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Alan

could you post some pictures of the flies?

craig

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PB Elinor 24.02.09 7lb 2oz
Check my profile under "about me" for contact number if you need to contact me and im offline

I'll try!!

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Alan

Cheers. I have a 9# rod, and also a 9/10# SWFF rod so should have plenty enough backbone.

__________________
Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine,
No blood of living insect stain my line;
Let me, less cruel, cast feather'd hook,
With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,
And with fur-wrought fly delude the prey

9# is more than adequate, in snaggy waters, you could go down to 7# in more open water, erm its a bit like trying to stop a train and takes a while to get under control - that is once they get into double figures. you will need 50 metres of backing and make sure of your knots! it all will get tested. Still looking for some pics of flies! may have to take a few more! another fly worth trying would be the 'Bivisible'

Alan

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Alan

I always used a 7# until I read some alternative advice to use lighter outfits on here a couple of years ago and that advice has stood the test. In open water you can go down much lower than a 7# to be honest, in fact I find the flexibility of the lower weight rods allows the use of finer tippets and more hook-ups as carp are far cleverer fish than trout and subsequently more line-shy. As long as you don't panic and attempt to bully the fish in it rarely comes off. Just let it run (several times usually) and it'll come in no problem.

I'd agree about the backing when fishing for larger carp (15lb+) although I had 15 of them the other night up to 8lbs on an 8'6" 4# Greys GRX with a tiny 2/3 Streamlite reel attached, the tapered leader being approximately 4lb b/s at the fly. None of the fish went anywhere close to the backing but this is standard for the water I was fishing. On a new venue I'd use a much larger reel with stepped up backing just as Ditchy says, at least until I was sure of what I was dealing with.

I posted these pictures of last Sunday evening elsewhere before but here they are again:

[/IMG]

Caught on this size ten overdressed emerger!!


BTW, Skateboard Dave is IMHO the authority on fly-caught carp on this forum. I've watched him do it on tiny little bloodworm patterns and it's largely down to him that I very rarely resort (unless I want a lazy day!) to the dog biscuit flies any more. He really knows his onions that geezer.

Cheers

Thanks for the further tips. I have taken loads of carp off the surface, just never on a fly approach so know what to expect once the fish is on Just wanted to ties up some flies for the task, and wanted to take a reasonably natural approach rather than glueing on a dog biscuit which just does not seem right

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Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine,
No blood of living insect stain my line;
Let me, less cruel, cast feather'd hook,
With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,
And with fur-wrought fly delude the prey

Went out again last night, very slow hardly any fish showing that was until 7pm, just about to leave and they appeared just about everywhere!! one last cast said a freind and I hooked up on the only attempt I had, we had a young lad very poor eyesight so handed the rod to him!! took ages to get under control mainly because he couldn't follow the direction the fish was taking - anyways after what seemed a very long time we had the beast in the net! 18lb-0oz registered on the scales?? seemed a good idea to share the fun, but that would have been my best fish so far??? just hoping that I can repeat it for myself.

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Alan