Wendy Berrell
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Posts posted by Wendy Berrell
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What flies did you use????
I used basic brown/green chenile with a hackle. I'll try to post a pic later... in the meantime, I'll paste an update here (I stopped at this spot again last night), in the form of an email I sent to John Montana this AM:
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If you saw what I saw last night, you’d build a house on the bank of the river at the dam. I only had an hour to fish, which just killed me!
Got three fish, but nothing huge… Two were 7-8 lbs. The other was the smallest carp I’ve caught, but it was really cool: scales were crazy looking… but they were all there. Almost looked like a mirror with no scales missing. Have you ever seen a carp like that? I have a pic at home. The bummer was that 2 of the 3 fish were snagged. The other one got me pretty excited though: I was able to walk along the shore to the main pod of fish, because flow is way down, and the ice is gone… And I am telling you – it was heart-attack land. Standing 10 feet away from water that was just THICK with carp – there were not even 3 foot gaps with no fish – it was pure carp. I was actually pretty disappointed in my three fish, because they took so long to land and I wanted to try for bigger ones… Anyway – the third one went for a fly: I dropped one right by his head and I saw him pause and turn toward it – set the hook and got him… but the fly was on the outside of his mouth! I couldn’t believe that when I got him in.
I’m just dying to get back there now, but it might be trouble… we just got an offer on our place, so things are going to get busier in very short order. I am going to just flat out ask for 2-3 hours on Saturday I think.
One other note – I hooked a fish in the shallows that was very cool…. I think I snagged it, but not sure. I’ve never seen a fish shoot away faster than this one did. I mean it looked like a missile! My first thought was that it was not a carp – it looked longer and narrower – like a pike or a muskie…. But after thinking about it, I can’t imagine it being anything other than a carp. However, the carp down there, when hooked, don’t shoot away like that… so I can’t be sure. Anyway, this missile shot out at lightning speed and then just kept taking line… straight out into the depths… popped off after about 30 seconds. Pretty cool anyway.
You’ll die when you see this place. It’s tough to get them to take flies, but they do now and then. We’ll probably snag as many as we fair-hook. I hooked one in the tail last night and landed him – pretty funny.
If the fish are still there in December (99% sure they will be – I think every damn fish in the river is holed up there for the winter), you will faint when you see this place.
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Bet the fish was glad to get back in the water after being on the ice
Thanks for calling me on that one. I do feel bad about handling fish sometimes... tough to know just what to do, especially when the fish is big and/or upset. This one did swim away with vigor, which made for a happy ending.
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Report and a couple pics here:
http://fishingandthinking.blogspot.com/200...om-riviere.html
I thought that the cold weather would completely kill carping for a while... but there are possibilities out there.
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I've been lurking around this really cool tailwater lately, observing hundreds to thousands of carp (literally) and occasionally fishing to them. It's cold here though, and the fish are moving very slowly, and are not actively feeding.... They basically just hang in the flow seams - probably because the water coming through the dam has been oxygenated en route, and may be a little warmer given that it is a mid-water-column discharge. They do continually open and close their mouths though.... just an inch or two under the surface. This makes me think that they may be feeding on something. They aren't klooping. It seems to me that opening the mouth subsurface would not really pass that much more water over their gills... but maybe the "sucking" motion does in fact draw in more water. Anyone know? I'm still battling in my mind over the physics of it: can one even "suck" water in one direction if the entire system is occupied by water and there is nothing to displace? Anyway... the worst part is that those fish that I can see are too far out in the current for me to reach from shore. So I'm restricted to searching the slackwater for stray fish here and there.... Last time I was there, I saw hundreds of these resting fish - could only inadvertently snag them though. This time when I walked up the whole damn carp community was snuggled around one little overflow stream that came inf from the side - they were all just sitting there, basking in the inflow. They did not look catchable at all... they looked like carp statues. I gave them a try and promptly spooked them all. I ended up blind fishing the slack waters again, but this time I had a better fly: the carp wooley #8. I believe that this fly had just the right sink rate, and was just subtle enough... finally got one by the mouth (although it was hooked outside the lip, it was on the lip - I believe it was a take). I was just throwing the fly out into good water and ever-so-slowly stripping it back. Anytime I felt the slightest resistance I set the hook... I connected with 5-6 fish, but the only one I landed was the mouth-hooked fish. That leads me to believe the others were snagged. They "felt" snagged too.
Anyway, if anyone has good cold weather carping tips, pass them on (forgive if I've missed a dialogue). It seems that there is no magic pill - just takes longer and is a lot tougher.... you can show fish flies and find that they just aren't interested. If a person were to do this long enough, it would really make spring/summer seem easier.
When I hooked this fish I had to run along the shore and slide/fall/climb down a vertical stone wall to get into position to land it... pretty cool. When I got to the bank I turned on the vid on my camera and just set it down. The result was a nice Beastie Boyesque carping video - I put some stills on my web log (URL in my signature). Sorry if you get the red-x. I'm not sure why that happens now and then... may have something to do with Blogger.
I gotta go catch up on everyone's carping - I haven't been a faithful reader lately. Happy fishing to all.
WB
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My favorites would have to be (1) carping the NW with John Montana - see vids he posted in this string, and (2) stalking and catching this great fish that I found pigging in the shallows... using a 4 wt nonetheless. You can read the report here: http://fishingandthinking.blogspot.com/200...fish-of-my.html
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Good info - thanks everybody. I may go look for another buffalo this weekend.
With due respect - that fish weighs more than 8-4, I'm sure of that!
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Good point about the take being far superior to the fight... It was the pinnacle of the catch in the this case too. I saw a pod of carp/buffalo feeding just below the surface, and I picked out one and cast to him with a girdle bug... he definitely took the fly - hooked in the corner of the mouth. A bit more detail on the catch provided here: http://www.fishingandthinking.blogspot.com/
Anybody have an estimate on the size of that fish? It was pretty big... the rod in the picture is a 7 wt.
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Wow - great job John. I knew positively that you would get a grasser. That is very cool. Great fish!
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I've caught a couple of buffalo fish while fly rodding for carp over the past month or two, and I think it's interesting to note that the two fish species seem to have completely different dispositions. When a carp is hooked, it feels electric, and it usually blasts off all over the place - taking all kinds of line, etc. etc. as I'm sure you're all familiar.... These buffalo - despite their enormous size - come in like barely-animated logs. I won't say they're as bad as logs or walleyes, but they are close. The fish pictured here gave two good thrashes, took no line, and came in with basically no protest. It's not a small fish... a carp that size would have killed me (and I would have loved it, of course).
Anyway - it just got me thinking: two fish species - both with similar bodies, similar habitats and diets... but very different characters - a good example of diversity in nature I guess.
Anyone out there with a scientific angle on why this may be? Do carp have more/better muscle? Do they respond more drastically to "pain" and/or being hooked? Do they have meaner dispositions? Good questions for the CAG...
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Great discussion here folks - just what I was looking for - thank you. I have concluded that I will, at the opportune time, consume a small carp. I'll heed your advice regarding keeping/cleaning the fish. I will shoot for a very small fish (by carp standards 2-3 lbs).
I caught a perfect specimen yesterday (see report if you want: http://fishingandthinking.blogspot.com/200...ping-today.html ) , but I am leaving for BWCA for a week, and I didn't want to hand my wife a pound of smoked carp as a going away present.
Thanks again!
Wendy Berrell
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One reads over and over about how common carp are the most sought after and eaten game fish in the world... to date my fly rod carping has been all catch and release. However, I am thinking of completing the cycle: consuming some of the catch. My belief is that there is nothing wrong with carp meat - there is just a stigma out there that keeps folks away from them when pursuing fish for food.
I checked with our local department of health, and their data confirm that what matters with resepct to mercury concentration in fish flesh is SIZE, not so much specie of fish. In fact, if you look here: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/fish...rivergenpop.pdf you will see that for the Cannon River (my home water) they suggest that "unlimited" consumption of smaller carp is acceptable for the general population. In fact, in the 15-20" class, they suggest limiting walleye, but not carp. I am thinking that this is because walleye - piscivores - cruise around swallowing little fish that have already bioaccumulated mercury and PCBs... whereas carp focus on vegetation and bugs, which offer tissue that is closer to the bottom of the accumulation process. I'm not 100% on that, but it seems to make sense to me.
Look at other rivers - the Chippewa for example: all four size classes of carp that were sampled have no suggested restriction.
Notably, some of the most restrictive situations are in the pristine rivers. Traditional water pollution scenarios are not the cause of mercury impairments... it's an airshed issue. Some of the north woods waters have significant fish consumption advisories.
Anyway - my question is: do any of you eat carp? It'd be great to hear any opinions on the proposition.
Thanks,
Justin
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Slump is Off!!
Here are details from most recent carp outing.
This carp slump had been killing me… the last 6-8 outings have resulted in zero fish landed. I needed some virgin water – or water that hadn’t seen many flies. Finally one day I happened to be driving by a certain river… had 30 minutes to spare so I went for it. I crept up to the hole that is frequented by wife-beater-wearers (see previous post), and as expected, it was TEEMING with carp. I would estimate 50-100 in this little hole, but it’s hard to say just how many were beneath the surface and out of my sight. They were not klooping, but they were actively feeding on something that was just below the surface – I could see big white mouths pulsing open-close-open-close. They were hanging out right on the seam between the backwater and the main current. I ninja walked through some woods about 50 feet away from them – hidden in trees… and they saw me anyway! Somehow they figured out that I was there, and they bolted out of there like a herd of horses – the water just erupted. I stood stone still in disbelief and looked around me… dark, tree cover and such a distance between me and the river – I couldn’t believe it. I leaned up against a tree and stared – the nervous water was now calm and not a fish was in sight… I just about started crying. Fortunately I pitied myself long enough to allow for the carp to return…. In about five minutes they were back – same numbers and same position. This time I looped way out of the way and came up behind them. I put a girdle bug on and started working my 4 wt Avid. Right away I hooked one, but I think it was foul, because after fighting for a while it popped off. I then broke off that fly on a fish. After that though I started working them over: I put the fly on the edge of the pod and let it sink… I kept in contact with the fly and if I felt anything at all I set the hook. This got me three fish – all right in the mouth… in fact, the fly was completely inside the mouth of every fish – I think because I couldn’t see the take and I was later on the strike than I would have been had I been sight fishing. For one of the takes I actually saw the end of the fly line twitch too – very cool. Two of the carp were only ~2-3 lbs, but one was around 5-6 lbs, and that one staged a beautiful run across the river… “run, run!” I was yelling because it’d been so long since I’d hooked a nice fish. All that in 25-30 minutes… can’t ask for much more. It was really hard to leave a mass of wriggling carp… as I’m sure you can imagine. I’ll be back though – I really like seeing so many fish – makes the outing very exciting. It felt like a hybrid of sight and blind fishing – I could see the group of fish but I wasn’t aiming at a particular one, and I couldn’t see the takes.
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I am right there with you on this one. I started out carp on the fly here in MN with a really good bang - in fact for my first 5-6 outings I never came home without having hooked and landed 1-3 nice carp. Then something happened... and my next 5-6 outings have all been blanks (except one successfuly sight fishing to a buffalo fish - thought it was a carp when I spotted it at a distance), despite finding plenty of carp to fish to in each instance... In some strange way, I feel like it has to do with the virginity of the water disappearing - it's like the carp are tougher every time I come back to the same place. I'll need a longer carping career to verify that, but somehow I've detected it even in this short stretch.
My plan is to change up my gear - new flies and maybe go from 3x to 4x tippet. Also, I'll be looking for new water and untouched carp.
In the meantime though, I focused my flies on some other fish - went back to the coldwater once, and got into some fun topwater lake action. You can read about any/all of these exploits here:http://www.fishingandthinking.blogspot.com/
I won't give up on carp though - heck I just got a new 7wt I need to try out. I really want to feel a fish rip some line.
Mr. P really said it well - being humbled is just as important as finding success... all part of the great wheel of fishing.
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I'd be up for a carp fly swap anytime.
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Great report - thanks. I like the writing style.
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I tied up some John Montana style carp flies on Friday night, and then got out for a bit of each day - Saturday through Monday. Had a great time battling 5 lbers with my 4 wt Avid. Reports and pics are here:
http://fishingandthinking.blogspot.com/
Here are some sample pics:
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I've gotten good at landing a carp with just my hands, the key is to keep its head out of the water to tire it out.
I'm going to remember this advice and hopefully field test it tomorrow. THanks for the tip.
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The flies are very similar, and they're both deadly. The trio in the pic are tied on size 10 hooks if I remember correctly. One of them was lost to a carp this week, and the other two are on assignment tomorrow AM!!
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It looks like the image of the fly might not come through... you can see it anytime by clicking the hyperlink in my signature.
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Here is the fly... tied up these three the night before. Copyright belongs to John Montana, but this is a slight variation. It's named the "4-4 crawdad" because that is how it opened up its career in the water: the first four carp that saw it, ATE IT! And actually, it's still batting 1.000, because a fifth fish hasn't seen it yet. This weekend we'll test that batting average...
Great discussion here, and I appreciate the carp fishing encouragement.
Thanks,
JW
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Man, you guys are great. Thanks a lot for the sound welcome. I look forward to getting to know everyone and talking carp.
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I don't know what the future holds re trout fishing... but I will say this: I surely am not plotting my next trout fishing scheme at this time - all I can think about is spotting a big gray ghost feeding in the shallows!
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That fish crushed that 4 wt pretty well... I can't believe more of you guys don't use fly rods to fish for carp. Give it a go! I sold all my spinning gear five years ago, and haven't looked back... every specie I pursue is with fly gear.
The first few times I was able to WATCH a carp take a fly I just about blew my top with excitement... it is amazing, and the anticipation can't be beat. I can't believe John Montana has preached about the merits of fly rod carping and thus converted more of you guys.
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Thank you for the welcome. I'll participate as actively as I can, and share whatever carp action I log. It's good to be here!
JW
PS: this was not first carp on fly - but it was the coolest yet
How Much Gear Do You Carry?
in Carp on the Fly
Posted
You hit on one of my favorite aspects of fly fishing for carp: going light. In addition to less encumbrance, going light provides another MAJOR advantage: less dinking around will persuade you to get out for that one-hour session... whereas if you had to jack around with 34 pieces of gear, put on waders, etc. you wouldn't do it. That is big for me, becuase I get a lot of short outings, and not many long ones. I think I might pack the lightest of all you guys though - here it is:
Rod/reel (of course with line/leader/tippet)
two spools of tippet snapped together (3x and 4x in front pocket of pants)
one fly box (in other front pocket or coat pocket)
lanyard with a few tools
polarized glasses and hat
waterproof camera (in side pocket of pants)
NO to vest, waders and net... all major encumbrances and things that take too long to deal with.
[coincidentally, I did for the first time bring net on Saturday, because I wanted to land any sub-huge fish faster so I could get flies out again asap]