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Thursday, May 9, 2013

Grass Carp

I hooked up with one of the backyard grass carp! These guys are tough to catch. I employed a handful of tactics and flies. I smacked them in the head with green hoppers, led them with green hoppers, tandem nymphs, worm flies, the hybrid, slow stripped bugs, and finally the answer was a classic clouser swimming nymph (CSN). I asked myself after catching this fish, shouldn't this be one of the first flies I throw at this fish? For a fish that is sitting or cruising about a foot under the water surface the CSN is a logical choice. The CSN has a slow sink rate allowing it to hover in the zone for a long time. This sets up nicely for leading a slow cruiser. With that, I'm gonna tie a few more CSN's and with any luck I'll harass a few more of these big fish.

The fight was great. This big fish jumped out of the water twice. Seeing grassies go airborn is quite spectacular. I hooked a couple last year that also went airborn but popped. This time I won. Man vs Grass Carp.

16 comments:

  1. Randy, who has the world record right now, i think.....throws cut grass from the lawnmower in the water, when they come up to eat it, he throws a little green fly made from a couple strips of green foam.

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    1. Do you remember the weight on Randy's fish?

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    2. That's some euro style carpin right there!

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    3. mid 50's i think, weighed at a post office scale to be legal.

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  2. Awesome! Yes they are tough, I applaud your success!

    Gregg

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  3. You have got some skills. Pike, trout, catfish, carp, quillbacks, doesn't matter. You catch'm. Nice going!

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  4. Outstanding fish. Nice work.

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  5. Awesome. Grassies are tough nuts to crack. Well done.

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  6. Congratulations, nice carp. I like too fly fishing carp.
    Greetings for that words

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  7. Nice carp, looks like a great time!

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  8. John
    I landed my first carp a couple of weeks ago on a tiny dragon fly--it was a grass carp and the caretaker of the lake told me that the grass carp seldom ever hits anything on top--that carp you landed puts my to shame--what weight fly rod did you take that brut on? Congrats on a bonus catch-

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    1. Bill – 5wt. Glad to hear you fooled one too!

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  9. Thanks for the words folks! This fish drove me nuts last year. Nice to get my hands on one again.

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  10. You and me both, John! These things drive me CRAZY! Well done, and I will have to try your tactic on my locals. My biggest issue is water clarity. It isn't often I can actually SEE the fish before they see me. Again...GOOD JOB!!!

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