Grass Carp Flies | Carp Flies from Missouriflies.com

Archive for the Grass Carp flies Category

Fish on 2013: Missouri River Wild Grass Carp on the Fly

By Missourifisher on April 8, 2013
This entry is filed under Carp fly Patterns, Grass Carp, Grass Carp flies, Missouri River Creeks and Oxbows. | 3 Comments

I visited “the spot” a couple days ago, seeing several large Grass Carp in the mid to upper creek, which is much deeper than the lower creek in times of low water. After getting skunked on the Musky front I headed over to the creek for a little look see. “Up or down the creek?”, I wonder. Water has been so low that I wondered if they were stacking up below some of the downstream riffles, waiting for higher water while they enjoy the warmer temps of the small creek. Bingo! about 1/2 mile downstream I found at least 1 or 2 large herds of GC. I chased them down the creek and back up taking 6 fish, mostly on a black ops variant with sparkle tail. Silver and black on size 8 and you can’t go wrong. I fish a lot of black in sizes 4-8 in the general shape of wooly buggers and black ops. Size 4 is great for giant GC, commons, catfish, and hybrid bass, along with drum etc. So when your not seeing GC you can throw the same flies or a little larger and slaughter everything else in town, and should that GC show himself …no need to change flies.

a grass carp in the water hooked on a fly

The first fish of 2013! Thank you Mr or Ms GC

Black ops sparkle tail, a new them on an old fly...does the trick

a hooked grass carp swims near a milk jug pollution

The pollution makes for a great size guage in this situation.

For general warm water fly fishing and Carp...this is a great fly (the species list on flies almost identical to this are very near 100 diff species, for real)

Alton Lock and Dam Fall 2012

By Missourifisher on October 2, 2012
This entry is filed under Carp fly Patterns, Drum, Goldeye, Grass Carp flies, Hybrid Stripped Bass, Smallmouth Bass flies, Weedless Flies. | 6 Comments

Wow… I hit up Alton Lock and Dam again. Water temps are starting to cool and at least some fish are feeding. As has been the case all year, water levels are low and clear! I ran into all sorts of fish this time, but the action was hit and miss requiring lots of treacherous hiking over worn rip rap walls. Day 1 I started with a drum followed by a smallmouth, both on the big crayfish pictured later.

That is my first ever St. Louis smallmouth!

I hiked back a side channel branch and landed a bunch of grass carp, some drum, a few gar, and even a bowfin! That doesn’t happen every day. In the evening I ran into a bunch of Hybrid Bass landing about 6 of them, and then they were gone.

Bowfin on a tiny carp fly (same as below)

Grass Carp on a size 8 Scorpion Gaper Headstand Backstabber

Headstand Backstabbers on Scorpion Gaper hooks size 8

Hybrid Bass on Size 6 Scorpion Gaper Squirrel Tail Clouser

Gold Eye

Squirrel Tail Clouser on size 6 Scorpion Gaper hook

On day two, I fished and hiked my way downstream about as far as anyone should ever care to walk. At the point where I stopped heading downstream I also got into a good sized group of Freshwater Drum. These fish tend to be caught along rocky drop offs and points with good depth and boulders.

This Rip Rap wall drops off to depths of 10-15 ft quickly and also pushes out into the current (which there isn't much of these days). Look for fish in the upstream pocket of such " small outcroppings" or anywhere along rip rap walls or wing dikes. In low current conditions try to find the most current!

Fish will seldom bite unless your fly is ON the bottom! In this case I was using a size 2 weedless hammerhead Roughdub.

The Most Bad Ass Crayfish I Have Ever Fished

Weedless Hammerhead RoughDub Crayfish in the Water

The whole trick is to get the fly on the rocks about 8-20 ft down and creep it up the bank wall with some dunt dunt dunt burst to get that crayfish vibe going, followed by slow creeping. You will see or feel the hit…usually right around the time your about to pull your leader through your rod tip….right in close. Sometimes long casts and leaders are required to get the fly in the right depth and possition…and of course your full array of whatever sinking line/head you like to use. I have a full float or a full sink (which isn’t real friendly) so this time I used up to a 15 ft leader and the heaviest big rattle crayfish I had(forgot the split shot). All in all I had a great time landing in the neighborhood of 30 fish, not bad!

Big shout out to Dan Frasier for the Scorpion Hooks, so far so good! Dan is involved with CarpPro.net and is doing a Carp on the Fly podcast everyone should check out!….I know I learned a lot of stuff from the first airing, I wasn’t expecting that!

Comments

Video Footage for Late August Early September

By Missourifisher on September 5, 2012
This entry is filed under Bluegill, Carp fly Patterns, Common Carp, Drum, Grass Carp flies, Hybrid Stripped Bass, Largemouth Bass. | 4 Comments

Lately I’ve been documenting my fishing with video instead of photo’s. Here’s the Latest action out of the STL. Isaac brought us some of the first real rains of the year and the fishing has been interesting.

Comments & Questions

July and August: Fly Fishing the Missouri River

By Missourifisher on August 21, 2012
This entry is filed under Carp fly Patterns, Common Carp, Common Carp flies, Drum, Grass Carp flies. | 4 Comments

Conditions have conspired to keep me from posting for some time now. I had intended to follow up the last post with a video compilation focusing on my techniques for grass carp, or maybe just me catching grass carp. Long story short…I couldn’t upload the compilation for some reason and had already erased most of the good individual video’s I wanted to include. This, coupled with the seriously crippling heat wave, difficulty accessing some of my favorite water, followed by the summer Olympics has led me into a sort of blogging malaise. On the bright side I do have some footage I can post shortly (A, B, C, Gar) and I have been able to get out occasionally and catch some fish. The Missouri river has been low all year and is incredibly beautiful. Grass Carp are the staple fish in the big river but Commons, Drum, Bass, Catfish, and Bluegill are often found in feeder creeks. I like to use small crayfish or small black nymphs for most of my fishing, but have also found damsel green backstabbers to be a good alternative.