Carp have moved to deeper water?

Buzzy

Buzzy

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Or so it seems. The big, skinny flat that's been quite productive has been almost void of fish the past couple outings, including today. It seems the countless divots in the mud all have algae growing in the bottom of the divot - I translate this to mean they're not fresh. No cloopers, almost no schmoots and until about 2:00 PM almost no wind. The wind picked up enough that it with me standing in my pram, I was moving far to fast up lake; by the time I'd see a fish I was almost on top of it. Time to call it a day:
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This little boat works really well for carp if I don't have to motor or row very far. I straddle the Fish-On seat which puts my eyes about 7-feet above the lake surface. Of course, carp can see me as well, but I'm hunting for carp that are focused on the mud; mudding (tailing) or vaccuming sediment, especially the latter.

I worked the big flat over - not quite barren of fish but almost. The shorelines were also short of fish. I found them feeding in water that was 3-feet deep or a bit more than that.

This was a productive fly:
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Most of the fish were on the small size, four to six pounds. The water is cooling off and they're easier to get to the net (unless fouled). One fish, while not a beast, was noticeably heavier than all the others.

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Last week I told my buddy Nick that I was putting away the carp gear; done until next year when I'll look for hungry pre-spawn fish. I guess I changed my mind. Six into the net, two lost, one foul hooked and I watched two fish chasing the fly but not able to catch up (the wind was carrying my pram away - sure funny watching the carp trying to cloop the fleeing hybrid.

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Brrrr
 
Last week on a day where water temp started at 60 at 9AM and ended at 68 at 3PM, all the carp I spooked at a nearby lake headed deep. And I didn't see very many.
 
Guy Gregory said:
Last week on a day where water temp started at 60 at 9AM and ended at 68 at 3PM, all the carp I spooked at a nearby lake headed deep. And I didn't see very many.
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I really should carry a thermometer (or hook up my sonar) and document water temperatures; something sure has changed in a short time. Shorter days, colder nights (full moon the past couple days), on and on.
 
"Hello. May I ask a question? Is there absolutely no carp rising here? When I fly fish for carp in Korea, I catch carp that are mud-rooting, but I also catch them when they are rising. Looking at this forum, though, it seems like almost no one is fly fishing for rising carp. Is that right?"
 

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thorn99 said:
"Hello. May I ask a question? Is there absolutely no carp rising here? When I fly fish for carp in Korea, I catch carp that are mud-rooting, but I also catch them when they are rising. Looking at this forum, though, it seems like almost no one is fly fishing for rising carp. Is that right?"
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Where I fish I have never even see that behavior. I've seen it before in random ponds when I wasn't fishing but never in the water I actually fish. The fish I go for are exclusively bottom feeding, or sometimes laid up along weed lines.
 
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I saw it years ago in Montana when Carp were focused on a heavy Mayfly hatch. I have caught surface feeders under Mulberry trees here in Washington on occasion & also when Carp were clooping Cottonwood seed pods off the surface. I've found all of these events to be few & far between opportunities.
 
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There are never opportunities for dry fly fishing for them where I fish.

Occasionally, you'll hear them sucking off the surface in the weeds, but those fish are not targets due to the fact they are deep in the jungle.
 
Same experience as the guys already mentioned. Mulberries when they start dropping and cottonwood seeds a few times. I've seen a couple attack adult damsel flies, but they are more apt to eat the nymphs...which they do. I'm pretty sure I've seen one inhale a big hex mayfly as well, but I've been on lakes with decent hex hatches and never felt like I would catch one if I put on a dry.
I think our state has too many goodies on the bottom like freshwater (mostly asian) clams, mussels and nymphs.
 
Evan B said:
Where I fish I have never even see that behavior. I've seen it before in random ponds when I wasn't fishing but never in the water I actually fish. The fish I go for are exclusively bottom feeding, or sometimes laid up along weed lines.
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Yes, that makes sense. In Korea as well, carp in relatively clear lakes with few trees around them rarely show rising behavior. One of the places where I see carp rising most often is in rivers that run through or around urban areas.
 
Jim F. said:
I saw it years ago in Montana when Carp were focused on a heavy Mayfly hatch. I have caught surface feeders under Mulberry trees here in Washington on occasion & also when Carp were clooping Cottonwood seed pods off the surface. I've found all of these events to be few & far between opportunities.
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Ah, exactly. Carp are opportunistic omnivores, so they usually key in on whatever food source is the most abundant and easiest to feed on at the time. Here in Korea, we even tie cherry blossom petal imitations in the spring to target carp feeding on fallen petals. During midsummer, when green algae starts floating on the surface, we tie dark green marabou with foam to imitate it. And just as you mentioned, some waters experience heavy mayfly hatches, and carp can be caught on mayfly patterns during those periods as well.
Of course, rising carp aren't very common, but when the conditions are right, you can see them rising quite regularly.
 
clarkman said:
There are never opportunities for dry fly fishing for them where I fish.

Occasionally, you'll hear them sucking off the surface in the weeds, but those fish are not targets due to the fact they are deep in the jungle.
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Ah, exactly. Carp make that same sucking/slurping sound when they're feeding on floating weeds too. I can imagine fishing for them in that kind of cover would be extremely challenging.
 
thorn99 said:
Ah, exactly. Carp make that same sucking/slurping sound when they're feeding on floating weeds too. I can imagine fishing for them in that kind of cover would be extremely challenging.
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John Geirach in his book "Another Day In Paradise" has a chapter about carp fishing where he writes "it was a hot and windless day and the carp were clooping the schmoots". I too have never been able to capture a schmoots clooping carp or one rising to dry flies. I've only seen carp rise a few times where I fish.

Welcome to the forum. Patrick.
 
skyriver said:
Same experience as the guys already mentioned. Mulberries when they start dropping and cottonwood seeds a few times. I've seen a couple attack adult damsel flies, but they are more apt to eat the nymphs...which they do. I'm pretty sure I've seen one inhale a big hex mayfly as well, but I've been on lakes with decent hex hatches and never felt like I would catch one if I put on a dry.
I think our state has too many goodies on the bottom like freshwater (mostly asian) clams, mussels and nymphs.
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That's interesting. I think it's similar in Korea. Because there is so much food available on the bottom in clear lakes, carp rising to dry flies actually seems to be more common in rivers near urban areas than in pristine waters.

To be honest, many years ago I uploaded some carp fly-fishing videos to YouTube, and they became fairly popular. The videos focused exclusively on carp dry fly fishing, from filming to editing. At the time, there were very few carp fly-fishing videos that featured dry flies at all.

Even now, there still aren't many videos of carp being caught on dry flies, which has always left me wondering: why don't anglers in other countries fish for carp with dry flies more often? Nymph fishing is great, of course, but carp on dry flies is incredibly fun as well.

That's actually what brought me to this forum. I was curious why so few people seem to pursue it.

By the way, I rely on online translation for English, so please excuse any awkward wording or expressions. 😊
 
Buzzy said:
John Geirach in his book "Another Day In Paradise" has a chapter about carp fishing where he writes "it was a hot and windless day and the carp were clooping the schmoots". I too have never been able to capture a schmoots clooping carp or one rising to dry flies. I've only seen carp rise a few times where I fish.

Welcome to the forum. Patrick.
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So in the end, carp rises are just too uncommon where you fish to really target them with dry flies. That's a shame.
 
thorn99 said:
So in the end, carp rises are just too uncommon where you fish to really target them with dry flies. That's a shame.
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I wouldn't characterize it as a shame, not at all. It's just very uncommon. I'm very happy fishing for carp with a sunken fly, it's still sight casting and at times only sensing when to set.
 
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