Hello everyone. I am not new to fishing as from an early age I started and fished mainly for carp and pike. At the age of fourteen landing myself three twenty pound pike the biggest being 28lb 12oz. I then started work and never found time anymore to fish. For some reason I cant find the patience to sit there carp and pike fishing. It has always been in my mind to have a go at fly fishing as you are always on the go searching for the fish. I have read with great interest articles about fly fishing for other species and have seen that both pike and carp can be cought on fly gear. I have never fly fished in my life and read that you have the fly line and backing line etc which is totaly new to me. Can someone be so kind as to point me in the right direction as to how to set myself up to carp fish on the fly. Ie rods, line, backing line etc etc and what sort of weight gear I would nee to catch good fish. Please escuse my ignorence on the subject but I thought this may be the best place to find out about others experiences. Stuart

Hi mate

As for fly fishing, then your best bet is take a couple of casting lessons to get the basics of this part ingrained, saves picking up bad casting habbits as for carp tackle i have fished all over for them and i use 6-8wt rods with reel with a decent drag on it they will run and run hard, as for backing i use 30lb micron backing and a floating line usually in a subtle colour rio do make a specific carp fly line.
Leader i use a 12ft tapered leader tapering to 10lb then a 8lb flurocarbon tippet on this. Always degrease the leader with fullers earth or other sinkant.
Stops the leader sitting proud and causing shadows on top of the water.
As for flies then either bread flies in deer hair so that they float, or dog biscuit pellet again in deer hair. These can be bought commercially or through ebay though look for deer hair.

I tied flies for a bloke on his 80's that carp fishes only on the fly and he had 14 and 24lb fish last week. 1 hour fight to land then on 6wt gear but what fun he was having.
Landing mate and a 40 inch specimen landing net are essential.
Once you are at a carp fishery wander round and find cruising carp and thow in dog biscuits, get them feeding properly, before casting a fly to feeding fish.
When they take the fly allow a small ammount of time then strike this will be different for every fishery / fish only comes with experience.
Have the drag on the reel set so that they can run with out snapping the leader or rod for that matter.
Hope this helps a little

tight lines

mike

Thanks Mike for the information very kind of you. What length rod do you use something like a 9 foot six ??? Stuart

most of my rods or 9ft - 9'6 though 10ft is fine also mate. By and large any length will surfice though i tend to use salt fly rods by choice as i treat them badly and they stand up to the punishment.
tight lines

mike

sorry for my ignorance what sort of size reel would you use or what reel. Do the reels take a certain amount of line. are reels related to rods and weight?? I am probably asking silly questions to you but I would rather get it right the first time with advice from aomeone who knows cheers Stuart

Hi Stewart

no problem mate, reels are usualy matched to a couple of line weights for instamce 3-4 , 5-6, 7-8 ect and so on and so forth take your rod weight say an 8wt rod then you would use a 7-8 or 8-9 size reel.
Add the backing i use micron 30lb at 175 yards spooled onto the reel then the 8wt floating line attatched to the backing.
I should have mentioned also get a small pot of either mcullin or fullers earth to degrease th leader when fishing this allows the leader to sink ever so slightly. Thus not spooking in comming fish with the leader casting a shadow on the waters surfice.
If you think of something your not sure on then just ask we all did it at some point. The beauty of fly fishing is you never stop learning.

tight lines

mike

I was always under the impression that Mucilin makes a line float and Fuller's Earth makes it sink. I'd make it sink personally as carp are far more wary than most other fish and will suss you out very quickly if presentation is poor and they see a shadow of a line floating.

hi mate you are right, not sure why i put mcullin in there i use fullers personaly, i have have used it in the past and caught though not as good as sinking the line.