The Carp Directory

Jay Zimmerman over at Colorado Fly Fishing Reports has posted pretty much the end all be all directory for Carp fly fishing articles.

http://coloradoflyfishingreports.blogspot.com/2009/04/fly-fishing-for-carp-directory.html?showComment=1311991598318#c5884306782453815797

Short story about Jay.  Back when he was working for the evil empire Jay was one of the first people I ever talked to about fly fishing.  I am sure he had heard it a thousand times before, grew up spin fishing... moved to Colorado... wanted to try fly fishing blah blah blah.  Even though when I left he probably rolled his eyes at me and my newbie questions he was nothing but cordial and extremely helpful.  So I obviously caught the fly fishing bug and he was a big reason why.

Shortly after that I went in and told him a story of trying to fish for Bass for the first time on my fly rod and hearing something thrash around in the weeds.  I decided to cast at it and to this day it is the best cast I have made, I hit whatever this thing was on the head.  I let the popper type fly sit there for a bit and this BEAST appeared behind it and then WHAM my fly went down.  I set the hook and 2 seconds later my line was floating back at me limply minus fly and beast.  Jay (and Rob another evil empire employee) both said "Carp" at the same time.  I said "No it couldn't be this was a dry fly, and carp only eat hotdogs and corn puffs right?" Mere moments later Jay was drawing me pictures and telling me how to go catch it to see for myself, and I have been addicted to it since.  I still am terrible at it, but it is all sorts of fun especially during run-off.

In short... if you happen to come across this and you havn't checked it out yet.  Head on over to his directory and his blog for that matter.  You won't be disappointed.

Fly Fishing is for Trout Only? Why?!

So I wanted to take a pause from my series on how to fish different types to flies. Many of us got into fishing because we were drawn to the idea of standing in the middle of a river with the trees surrounding us and some sort of mountain scenery all around you. This is all well and good and is still what I enjoy most to this day however there is a period of time, most notably between May and June where the snow runoff turns most of our streams into raging rapids. The Kayakers get all geeked out about this but it isn't good for us anglers. You will go down to your local fly shop and see a lot of sad faces. People will throw out the terms "Blown-out" and "Chocolate Milk" to refer to the favorite stream. However in the back, tying up something that vaguely looks like a leech or some other random giant streamer is a guy with a huge smile on his face. If you talk to this guy you will find out that he has been fishing every day for the last two months in the local lake.

Perhaps some of you are turned off by the idea of super speedy boats, sponsored guys on ESPN throwing some worm into the same spot a thousand times. Or perhaps the thought of a can of worms and a bobber makes you want to pass out. However we are fly fisherman, none of these things apply to us! There is no shame in throwing out a streamer and slowly retrieving it along a bank of weeds and hooking up with a large mouth. Not only is there no shame it is downright fun.

I highly encourage you all to get out there and try some warm water fishing. My favorite species to go after are Carp. Now before you talk about how gross they are or how easy they are to catch I can just stop you right there and state that you are wrong. Sure I could chum the waters with dog food and probably catch a Carp, but then again I could sit on the bank with a can of worms to, that isn't what I am talking about. I enjoy trying to sneak up on a Carp that I can see, place the fly 1-2 feet in front of where I think he might swim and then strip the line when he gets close. If all goes well (and it usually doesn't for me) then you have a fight on your hand that will take you into your backing. I promise to go into this more one of these days and post up some tactics and such, but for now hopefully this sparks some of you to get out there and try. Or of course you can go mope around the fly shop with the other guys. I will be off fishing with the guy in the back!