Thursday, August 25, 2011

First Gar and Grass Carp On The Fly



I set a couple goals for myself in the 2011 fishing season. I told myself I would catch carp while fly fishing and I would try to catch a gar on the fly. I am proud to say that I have accomplished both feats. I landed my first gar while fly fishing and I got my first grass carp on this last outing to the River Des Peres in St. Louis, MO.

My buddy Brian and I ventured into the storm runoff / sewer drain ridden River Des Peres. Brian is the king of finding fishing spots in the urban setting. He is constantly on the look out for the next spot to find some fish to cast at. Once again, I would have walked right by this river. I would have never dreamed it could hold fish. We had a great day catching a lot of fish. We both landed our first gar while fly fishing that day. Good times.

Brian wrote up a great blog post about our trip and he posted a video of a slight mishap while fighting a fish. Check out his blogpost here.

Fly fishing tips:
1. Clean your gear after fly fishing in dirty, slimy and scary water.
2. Gar will hit anything bait fish looking. Our gar were mostly caught on wooly buggers.
3. Sharp hooks when fly fishing for Gar.
4. Sight cast to gar and strip the fly across the gar's path. They will react to the fly and hit it.
5. It helps to have a fishing buddy to net fish.



6 comments:

  1. Awesome. I'm still looking for my first gar. Grass carp aren't easy to catch. I have a couple rope flies for gar. I've only really used them once.

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  2. Hey Kev2380. I tried a rope fly that day. The gar hit the fly, but they wouldn't get their teeth stuck in it. I don't think I tied the fly correctly. It was a bit short and stubby. I am going to try the rope fly again, but a bit longer and thin. Thanks for reading.

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  3. Did you strip the fly in when they hit, or did the hit the fly when it was dead drifting?

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  4. I would cast in front of the gar and strip the fly in. The fly would pass right in front of the gar. The gar would see it and then follow. Most times the gar would hit the fly on this type of retrieve.

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  5. You guys have interesting fishing. It's cool to read of your discoveries and new experiences. Trout are my foundation here but now I almost exclusively fish for carp, and can year round in one pond, though it's very, very slow this time of year. Long ago I was at basic at FT. Leonard Wood, and once on a pass I explored near Rolla and found a spring creek. I was very disappointed to see stocked rainbows in there mixed with sunfish and bass. Trout, give me wild fish. Keep up the writing for the species that are really challenging and fight long and hard. You have a very nice blog, as does your pal Brian, great stuff.

    Gregg

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  6. After watching your posts I can say that you are very genius because it is not a easy task and everybody can not do that because it requires some skills and interest. If u are interested in carp fishing then u can do that if you are not interested then you can not do these kind of posting. And carpbuddy.com is a site that provides lots of carp fishing news, carp fishing articles, carp fishing tackle reviews.

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