Brood X: Catching Carp on Dry Flies

 I've caught carp on the surface before. Plenty, actually. I've had days where I got half a dozen or more carp on dry flies. However, it always required chumming them up with bread and that just felt cheap. I wanted a more natural scenario, and ideally I wanted fish eating insects, though I'd happily take berries as well. 

Brood X just so happens to emerge around some of the best carp waters on the East Coast. Carp have a known affinity for cicadas. The huge periodical emergence and the millions of big, juicy bugs plopping into ponds and rivers are going to get some carp looking up. It was one of the things I was most excited about as I made my way south. After a catfish filled morning, I began to look for something a bit bigger.

It took hours. I walked, I waded, I drove. I gave myself horrendous leg and foot cramps. I saw some cool things on the way, thankfully. I watched a Northern water snake foraging(?) for the cicadas. I watched it swim out, grab a cicada, then swim back to the river's edge where it finished consuming the bug. It then repeated the process twice more. I'm not sure this behavior has been documented in this species, though snakes are known to take advantage of the cicada emergence. You may have seen wildly titled articles about "extra copperheads" eating the cicadas- there were dozens of them popping up a few months ago -that was bull. Copperheads modify their behavior very slightly during the cicada emergence but people living within their range aren't likely to see any more than they otherwise would. I never saw one, though I looked in some viable habitat. Later in the afternoon, I saw a beautiful garter snake swimming across the river and headed it off. She had a big food bolus (the lump caused by a food item wider than the snake's own body) that was very much cicada proportioned. I got a couple shots before leaving her to her business.

Not long after that, I found what I'd been searching all day for. A school of seven carp were in a back eddy, sucking down every cicada in their path.

I frantically made my way to the gravel mound you can see in the bottom right of those two photos. Breathing heavily, I tried to calm down and collect myself to be ready for a shot. Fish were cycling through the eddy, going against the current, picking of cicadas as they went. I gave myself a few minutes before easing into position. I waited for a fish coming down the bank. One came. I made a cast. When the fish, a sizable mirror, got to the fly, he nosed it but did not take. Stay calm, Rowan.

I quietly removed my fly and waited for the next fish to come down the bank. This time it was a better common. I made my cast. The fish deviated off course to eat a natural, then turned back and came to my fly. It rose. I waited. It opened its mouth. I waited. It sucked in the fly. I waited. It turned... I set the hook. And so ended all chances I'd get another shot in that back eddy that day. This fish lost its mind when I set the hook, thrashing violently and then tearing off on a blistering run. Every other fish there spooked. I needed to land this one. The fight was long and hair raising. At one point I thought I might have to swim out to get the fly line off of a huge submerged rock, but luck was on my. Big river carp fight harder than most fish, and getting this one to hand on my 5wt TFO was a task and a half. I did it though, I got the fish. It had a big bulging gut full of cicadas and was fantastically proportioned. This was the fish I'd made the trip for. 

I'd come a long way from another of the best carp areas in the country to get the very same fish eating something different. It was worth the trip. Fly fishing is about the experiences, and it doesn't take catching a tone of hue fish to make a great experience. Set the stage with a remarkable and rare biological phenomena, add in some fickle fish of a few different species, and put them in an interesting and beautiful environment and I'm a very happy man. There's more cicada mania to come, as I headed West to colder waters with different species. 

With a satisfying and surprise lifer out of the way, I continued on my quest for fish chowing on periodical cicadas. Now I was looking for carp. It would prove to be a very rewarding challenge. 

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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