# Flood time carp



## Whelen35 (Mar 9, 2004)

I have been attempting to hook a few of the large carp that are out and about now that the red river is high, but have had very limmited results with the flies that I have been tossin to them, any help on what might work before the water goes down? Here is what I have been attempting so far: The area that I am fishing is slack water where rain runoff is entering the river via a culvert into a small area holding lots of fish. I have tried wooley boogers,hex nymph and adult, muddler minnow, large and small ants, minnow streamers, fake worms. I have cought walleyes and goldeyes, but no land em type hook ups on the carp. I did brake down and bow fished for a bit, and after getting several in the 12-17lbs range, hit one that broke my 50lb line. It was not new, but it was enough to pull the under 20lb size in without a fight, just pull em on in. I so want to get one like this on the fly rod, and my time is limmited, any help would be great, a 20+ amything on a fly rod is just great. Help, I only have a few days before the river goes down, and the easy to find big ones are gone!!!


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## Whelen35 (Mar 9, 2004)

I have found the fly for this type of fishing situation, a tadpole immitation in black. Size 12 2xlong 2-3 strands of osterage plume then a short length of silver tinsil for just a bit of flash and then black dubbing heavy shaped round like the head of a tadpole. Have caught several large carp largest is 22 lb and 6 oz and largest cat is 18 lb 2 oz with just a few walleye's and goldeyes to make it interesting. Last night I hooked into something that with my 10 foot 8wt rad and 14lb leader could not turn. It went out about 125yds against my drag and into the main river where it then really took off and I decided to either stop it or break my leader and not loose my fly line if things went bad. What it was, I will never know, but I shure am going to try fly fishing in the Red a bit more, that was fun!!!
They do it near Winnipeg for cats and carp, so why can't we? This would give me the excuse to get a 10wt and go heavy.


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

Wow, too bad you didn't at least see what it was. Probably a big ol carp, although possible a catfish or even a Northern??? I've used all the flies you named for carp with more or less sucess. Sometimes you twitch a fly right under their nose and they still ignore it! A 20 pound carp would be a heck of a fight on a fly line!


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## Whelen35 (Mar 9, 2004)

It shure was a blast, I have been useing a 8wt 10 foot rod and the tadpole immitation has been working very well. A black gnat in size 14 has been working very well also. I think that if the water goes down like it usally does in the fall, I will attempt to catch a few more fish in the red on the fly rod just to see if it can be done again. The big carp are great fun, and will test your knots and equipment to its limmits. I can see how carp are being sought by fly fishing people. They are hard to get to bite, and fight very well, much harder than most fish pound for pound.


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## bluesman (May 25, 2009)

I used to fish for carp in an inter-city stream with weighted nymphs. The water was clear but polluted at the time. It is very hard to stalk carp because they are always very leery. I had to present the nymph right under their noses too and that's not easy either. The water was not flooded and it was very shallow except for the spots under a railroad bridge where there was cement embankments and a small cement bridge crossing the stream. They would hold along the man-made structure in the deeper water and venture out to shallower water to feed. It was my invented sport. When I hooked one and fought it I would "shoot" it upstream at a 45 degree angle across the current. That was always fun. Fighting the carp like this was worth the trouble.

:beer:


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