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You gotta love the names of some of these flies....
Anyways... I actually went out this morning with the intentions of hooking up with a grass carp on the fly. Man oh man... and I thought common carp were a challenge! I tied a couple flies last night to represent a couple different types of vegetation. A floating moss fly (some olive marabou with a green foam top), a sinking moss fly (just a bunch of marabou wrapped around the hook to look all fluffy and pulsate in the water), and even a couple of "grass flies" I made out of different sizes of green foam. I went to a lake where I've seen 5 or 6 monster grass carp swimming around picking things off the surface from time to time. I figured all I'd have to do was stalk them for a little while, cast out in from of them with one of these flies, and bingo.... WRONG! When I got to the lake I saw that the grass had just been cut the day before and all the clippings were floating along the edges. In my mind I thought this was a good thing... and it was... for the carp. The sun was ducking in and out behind clouds. It was as if every time the sun went behind the clouds a dinner bell would chime and the carp would start on a feeding frenzy. Big mouths would come up and chomp along the surface pac man style eating anything in its path. Then the sun would come back out and all the mouths would disappear. During these feeding frenzies I tried every single fly I had tied. I would crouch down real low till I was within casting distance and put my fly out as close to them as possible and just hope they would take it. The people at the park must have thought I was a weirdo. As it turned out the grass clippings made my flies unnoticeable. The carp would chomp along and unless I could pretty much cast right into their mouths... my flies were pretty much needles in a haystack. A couple times they got within inches but my fly just wasn't along the path they were chomping. It was fun, intense, nerve racking, and frustrating all at the same time.
After a couple of hours of stalking and casting the sun came out for good. I looked to the sky and saw that it was going to be a long time before a cloud would cover up the sun again and I didn't have that time to wait. So what better to do than to pull out my old rod and try some new flies I had also tied last night and see if any bluegill would be interested. I started out with the greenie weenie. I've heard this fly is a bluegill magnet so I figured I'd give it a shot. Very simple to tie and turned out to be very effective. I caught about 5 or 6 gills on it within about 30-45 mins.
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Even though the gills were loving the greenie weenie I decided to try another "fly" I tied called a squirmie wormie. I got the idea from a fly fishing guide out of Washington D.C. named Rob Snowhite. He has an awesome podcast that I frequently listen to and he kept mentioning this "squirmie wormie" and saying that his clients were tearing it up with these things. I'm pretty sure he wasn't kidding. This thing was absolutely deadly on the bluegill. I probably caught about a dozen, maybe more, within the next hour. Some of them were so deep in the fish's mouths I had a hard time getting them back. (I did and all fish swam away perfectly fine). And it surprisingly held up very well. I was worried the little guys would tear this rubbery material up pretty quickly but it's all still in tact and ready to be used another day.
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I guess there is actually rubber material out there that you can buy specifically for tying this thing up but I just went to the dollar store and got a couple balls that had these little rubber things all over them and used them.
So even though I didn't get my grass carp I still had a lot of fun with the gills. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can get one of those grass carp to bite I'm all ears because I can honestly say that they have gotten the best of me. I've probably spent a total of about 20 hours fishing for these guys and still have nothing to show for it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Anyways... I actually went out this morning with the intentions of hooking up with a grass carp on the fly. Man oh man... and I thought common carp were a challenge! I tied a couple flies last night to represent a couple different types of vegetation. A floating moss fly (some olive marabou with a green foam top), a sinking moss fly (just a bunch of marabou wrapped around the hook to look all fluffy and pulsate in the water), and even a couple of "grass flies" I made out of different sizes of green foam. I went to a lake where I've seen 5 or 6 monster grass carp swimming around picking things off the surface from time to time. I figured all I'd have to do was stalk them for a little while, cast out in from of them with one of these flies, and bingo.... WRONG! When I got to the lake I saw that the grass had just been cut the day before and all the clippings were floating along the edges. In my mind I thought this was a good thing... and it was... for the carp. The sun was ducking in and out behind clouds. It was as if every time the sun went behind the clouds a dinner bell would chime and the carp would start on a feeding frenzy. Big mouths would come up and chomp along the surface pac man style eating anything in its path. Then the sun would come back out and all the mouths would disappear. During these feeding frenzies I tried every single fly I had tied. I would crouch down real low till I was within casting distance and put my fly out as close to them as possible and just hope they would take it. The people at the park must have thought I was a weirdo. As it turned out the grass clippings made my flies unnoticeable. The carp would chomp along and unless I could pretty much cast right into their mouths... my flies were pretty much needles in a haystack. A couple times they got within inches but my fly just wasn't along the path they were chomping. It was fun, intense, nerve racking, and frustrating all at the same time.
After a couple of hours of stalking and casting the sun came out for good. I looked to the sky and saw that it was going to be a long time before a cloud would cover up the sun again and I didn't have that time to wait. So what better to do than to pull out my old rod and try some new flies I had also tied last night and see if any bluegill would be interested. I started out with the greenie weenie. I've heard this fly is a bluegill magnet so I figured I'd give it a shot. Very simple to tie and turned out to be very effective. I caught about 5 or 6 gills on it within about 30-45 mins.
Even though the gills were loving the greenie weenie I decided to try another "fly" I tied called a squirmie wormie. I got the idea from a fly fishing guide out of Washington D.C. named Rob Snowhite. He has an awesome podcast that I frequently listen to and he kept mentioning this "squirmie wormie" and saying that his clients were tearing it up with these things. I'm pretty sure he wasn't kidding. This thing was absolutely deadly on the bluegill. I probably caught about a dozen, maybe more, within the next hour. Some of them were so deep in the fish's mouths I had a hard time getting them back. (I did and all fish swam away perfectly fine). And it surprisingly held up very well. I was worried the little guys would tear this rubbery material up pretty quickly but it's all still in tact and ready to be used another day.
I guess there is actually rubber material out there that you can buy specifically for tying this thing up but I just went to the dollar store and got a couple balls that had these little rubber things all over them and used them.
So even though I didn't get my grass carp I still had a lot of fun with the gills. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can get one of those grass carp to bite I'm all ears because I can honestly say that they have gotten the best of me. I've probably spent a total of about 20 hours fishing for these guys and still have nothing to show for it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
