Another Night Carp

 Two years ago, while targeting walleye, a big common took me completely by surprise and ate my chartreuse and yellow Woolly Bugger. The conditions were ideal for giant walleye that night and the fish didn’t fight that hard, for a common carp. It really had me thinking I’d just hooked the next IGFA fly tackle world record walleye. Instead of spending the rest of the night trying to get a 15 pound walleye on a certified scale so I could submit it, I instead was wondering how the f*** the 20 pound carp I caught managed to find my streamer in dark, murky water at night. Carp clearly aren’t only scent-based feeders, and I suspect they aren’t sight-based either. I think that fish felt the fly. I know very well how they react to anything hitting the surface of the water. In fact, the right sort of “ploop” can trigger a pretty aggressive response from some feeding carp. Of course, it sends others packing. 

To reinforce my theory, almost the exact same thing happened this year. The prior experience told me that I’d hooked a carp this time, but the take was so aggressive I second guessed it a few times. In fact, this fish slammed the fly mere seconds after it hit the water. But it was indeed a common, not a huge walleye. Why they seem to fight so much less impressively at night I still have not figured out, but the immediacy of that left no doubt… like a “lateral line take” (Dave and Amelia Jensen talk about this in the context of trout a lot), that carp didn’t see the fly enter the water, nor did it smell it as there was nothing to smell, but it reacted to the “plop” and sought out the source. 

Though I doubt this can be applied to blind casting at carp at night- I think trying to make this happen would be just about impossible -in low light condition where you can see the fish well but they might have a difficult time visually detecting a fly, perhaps a very quiet presentation would be less likely to produce than one that has the fly entering the water with a little splash or plop. Worth thinking about, I think, if you are serious about targeting carp with a fly rod. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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Edited by Cheyenne Terrien