Addition to the carp genre

Addition to the carp genre

I sat in the sun, uncomfortable amongst poking sticks. A few carp, maybe five, were feeding hard stirring up a mud cloud below my perch on the high bank; but instead of casting I was trying to untangle my fly line from a mesh of twigs. These things can test oneโ€™s patience, but the fish were big enough to work hard for. Fly line freed I flicked a Bloody Squirmy up-current and watched it settle near the feeding fish. A youngster rushed to the fly and although I was after the older, wiser carp in the gang, I wouldโ€™ve been satisfied with any at that stage.

It slowed down when it got to the fake worm and then it bolted off and with it all the others. โ€œWhatโ€ฆโ€ I was confused. A fly thatโ€™s been deadly for nearly three years now was turned down and by a naรฏve juvenile! I lifted my favourite Berg River carp fly out of the water and took a good look at it. โ€œNothing wrong thereโ€ I thought and reeled the line in. I left the pool feeling defeated, defeated at something that was once really straight-forward, in fact almost a given. I hadnโ€™t blanked on the Berg for a very long time and on that day my fly got turned down by the dozen.

I got home and sat down behind the vice with nothing in mind. Empty headed I opened my carp box and looked through it. I glanced over tiny, sparse Zuluโ€™s and modified Woolly Worms with ZAK bodies, flies that were once the mielies, before I discovered rubber for worm imitations. That sparked an obvious idea; โ€œWhat about a combo fly?โ€

The fly that shaped with that thought looked great. It had the best of both, a ZAK-like body, but with natural CDC instead of hackle and a lekker red rubber worm tail. Instead of a hot orange bead, I weighted it lightly with a small black tungsten bead. Convinced that it would catch fish, I filled a row in my box with these for the next trip.

The ‘new’, more buggy worm fly for carp.

Having had a bad experience with carp on a previous outing, Garth Nieuwenhuis was hungry for more and we agreed to meet at my place for a Berg outing the next weekend. New water is something weโ€™re always looking out for and instead of the usual Paarl centre we headed way down town, beyond the Paarl industrial area and found a place where the bergies were buzzing around us like tsetse flies.

There were carp, big, fat ones, but not many. Although not present in abundance, it was still a good time to try out the โ€˜newโ€™ pattern. I stalked three different fish from the steep banks and all three ate the fly, but I hooked and landed only two of them.

Garth Nieuwenhuis with a lovely down town Berg River carp.

Chuffed with the new addition to my cyprinid fly box I took it for a strip at the Paarl cemetery, a stretch in central town where the fish can be extremely spooky. This time I presented the fly to four fish and landed three of them. One was a really nice specimen just cruising the middle of the pool and it ate the fly at pace, not something Iโ€™ve seen often.

How to tie the ZAKย body:

Tie in two strands of stripped peacock herl, one normal strand of peacock herl, a natural cdc feather (strip the fibres off one side of the feather) and a strand of crystal flash โ€“ these materials should be twisted into a noodle to shape the body, instead of the standard vinyl ribbed body of the improved Bloody Squirmy.

Improved Bloody Squirmy

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2 thoughts on “Addition to the carp genre”

  1. But the question is Leonard: on the day that you went back, and your new Zak-style worm fly worked, did you also try the fly that had spooked all the fish on the previous trip, to see if it spooked the fish again? I have noticed over the years, for reasons that I cannot fathom, that fishes will crap themselves at the sight of a fly one day, but eat the same fly with glee the next, carp and triggerfish are wonderful examples of this.

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  2. Howsit King Edward, no I didn’t try the ‘old’ fly on those days (why change a fly if it’s working is my general approach), but I did notice a change in behaviour when carp saw the older pattern on a number of trips in the season, but not as bad as the one I described above – that was the final call for me to make a change; fish didn’t eat it aggressively as before, instead they investigated the fly and fish that would’ve chowed it without a doubt two years ago simply turned up their noses. They’ve definitely become wiser. Berg fish were also suckers for a hot orange bead not too long ago, now it spooks them. So, a lighter and more natural fly was the obvious answer in my mind and this time it worked…I wouldn’t be surprised though if I get refusals in the upcoming months. Carp are the elephants of freshwater.

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