# Carp on the Fly



## BassFishing123 (Jun 6, 2015)

I'm looking to get into fly fishing for carp. What flies should I tie? I'm an experienced fly tier and can tie about any of them. I have a 5wt combo I'm going to use. I'm looking to ask, how to I fish for them? Where do I begin? I fly fish for other fish from trout to musky but am looking to get into carp. Do I sight fish for them? Any lakes in northeast Ohio good for them? All info appreciated. Please post pictures and what you caught them on. Thanks!


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## canoe carp killer (Apr 2, 2014)

I bought a 8 weight combo last week from cabelas that normally runs $319 but got it for $149. Bought it solely to try for carp as well. Have never fly fished before


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## Indybio72 (Nov 6, 2013)

Hi BassFishing123, and welcome to the carp addiction. You got some loaded questions there. There is much info on the Web and some pretty good books on the subject if your interested. Your 5wt, should be okay but truely depends on the size of fish you will be targeting. Small creek carp and a 5wt is good, but in some of the larger river and lake systems you will want an 8wt. As for flies, I'd say match the hatch. If there are crayfish then tie up patterns like that, if not find out what invertebrates are most common (for me it's blood midges, so I tie a small red nymph). And yes you will want to sight fish for them. With carp fishing you got two main challenges (in my mind) first you got to find a feeding target (not always easy) and then presentation, presentation, presentation. Accuracy is key with these guys. You gotta know where they are at. It's very highly unlikely while blind casting to get one. If you can see their mouths then it helps alot to know when they are on the fly. Many times though they have their head buried in the mud and you may only see the tail. This is when accuracy is key, ya gotta put it near where the head should be, and then watch that fish for any changes in movement. It takes practice. Carp have been reported to be one of the most challenging fresh water fish on the fly. Best of luck to you.


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## Crawdude (Feb 6, 2013)

Hey Bass Fishing, I just saw this, I don't usually look at this section of OGF. I just posted a report in the SW section about carp fishing on the fly. It's more of a story but hopefully you can get some information from it. Also, I use a 9' 7 weight and a reel with good smooth drag.

http://www.ohiogamefishing.com/threads/i’m-not-sure-how-i-ended-up-here.283842/

Good luck, if you haven't got into them already!


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

Indybio72 said:


> Hi BassFishing123, and welcome to the carp addiction. You got some loaded questions there. There is much info on the Web and some pretty good books on the subject if your interested. Your 5wt, should be okay but truely depends on the size of fish you will be targeting. Small creek carp and a 5wt is good, but in some of the larger river and lake systems you will want an 8wt. As for flies, I'd say match the hatch. If there are crayfish then tie up patterns like that, if not find out what invertebrates are most common (for me it's blood midges, so I tie a small red nymph). And yes you will want to sight fish for them. With carp fishing you got two main challenges (in my mind) first you got to find a feeding target (not always easy) and then presentation, presentation, presentation. Accuracy is key with these guys. You gotta know where they are at. It's very highly unlikely while blind casting to get one. If you can see their mouths then it helps alot to know when they are on the fly. Many times though they have their head buried in the mud and you may only see the tail. This is when accuracy is key, ya gotta put it near where the head should be, and then watch that fish for any changes in movement. It takes practice. Carp have been reported to be one of the most challenging fresh water fish on the fly. Best of luck to you.


This is why I would say I need more specifics on where you would be fishing, what water types. IndyBio does great on small red blood midges...and I have seen the proof...and I can promise you that mud flat fish where I target them would never find that fly. What is a good choice in clean flowing water, for me, will be night-and-day different from what I would use on a mud flat with feeding carp. I fish more mud flats with dirty water and fish more dragon/damsel/craw styled patterns that are solid black in color 95% of the time. I also use bigger flies than some around here, with some of the small articulated carp flies I use being a few inches long as opposed to a small single hook nymph. The cool thing about carp is that even on an articulated pattern I tie that might be 2.5-3" long, I can use a relatively small hook at the head because of the way they take a fly. They don't nibble, in my experience, at all. If they think it's food, they suck that thing in and the whole fly goes in. So even on longer patterns, a single hook at the head results in about 100% hookups.

It is all sight fishing, and although they are sensitive to vibration, I have found you can get closer to a feeding carp than you might think. In a kayak, I rarely have more than 15' or so of fly line out. I routinely hook fish from the kayak with maybe a foot or two of fly line out. If you have no boat, in shallow water you can wade pretty close as long as you don't thunderfoot your way through the water. The closer you can get, the better. Your cast usually needs to be pretty close to their nose without lining the fish or hitting the fish, so accuracy counts. Look up the drag and drop presentation style, also. I use it all the time in the flats. It's not glamorous, but it is effective. Another thing I would add is use a strike indicator if you can get away with it. I, personally, do not care if some elitists (carp elitists, that's funny) frown upon them. In dirty water, especially, you're not usually going to get 20 strikes a day, so I want to make sure I do not miss the ones I do get. Sometimes they are vicious and obvious, sometimes they are pretty subtle, usually they are somewhere in between.


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## Indybio72 (Nov 6, 2013)

TheCream said:


> This is why I would say I need more specifics on where you would be fishing, what water types. IndyBio does great on small red blood midges...and I have seen the proof...and I can promise you that mud flat fish where I target them would never find that fly. What is a good choice in clean flowing water, for me, will be night-and-day different from what I would use on a mud flat with feeding carp. I fish more mud flats with dirty water and fish more dragon/damsel/craw styled patterns that are solid black in color 95% of the time. I also use bigger flies than some around here, with some of the small articulated carp flies I use being a few inches long as opposed to a small single hook nymph. The cool thing about carp is that even on an articulated pattern I tie that might be 2.5-3" long, I can use a relatively small hook at the head because of the way they take a fly. They don't nibble, in my experience, at all. If they think it's food, they suck that thing in and the whole fly goes in. So even on longer patterns, a single hook at the head results in about 100% hookups.
> 
> It is all sight fishing, and although they are sensitive to vibration, I have found you can get closer to a feeding carp than you might think. In a kayak, I rarely have more than 15' or so of fly line out. I routinely hook fish from the kayak with maybe a foot or two of fly line out. If you have no boat, in shallow water you can wade pretty close as long as you don't thunderfoot your way through the water. The closer you can get, the better. Your cast usually needs to be pretty close to their nose without lining the fish or hitting the fish, so accuracy counts. Look up the drag and drop presentation style, also. I use it all the time in the flats. It's not glamorous, but it is effective. Another thing I would add is use a strike indicator if you can get away with it. I, personally, do not care if some elitists (carp elitists, that's funny) frown upon them. In dirty water, especially, you're not usually going to get 20 strikes a day, so I want to make sure I do not miss the ones I do get. Sometimes they are vicious and obvious, sometimes they are pretty subtle, usually they are somewhere in between.


Agreed in every way. Carp elitists, I bet there are some old school fly fisherman that never thought they'd hear those words uttered haha.


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