Carp on the fly...

01:20 Lewis Gaukrodger 0 Comments

Well the beginning of a week away in Devon was some what of a wash out with 50mph winds whipping off the coats and constant rain for what seemed like an eternity!

Having only taken a surface set up and a fly rod I left it as late as possible in the week to head down to Riverton Fisheries for a session. Initially setting up on a freelined approach a generous trickle of mixers and Hookbait Company flakey pop ups were introduced and the carp were soon cautiously rising and slurping several off the top. A The wind was coming from the right hand side on an island in front of me pushing the missed free offering into a sheltered corner under an over hanging free. After around 20 mins of getting fish to rise I introduced a hair rigged Flakey pop up with the hook tight to the back of the imitation bread bait. It wasn't long before a set of pale gold lips appear next to the bait and the bait disappeared into a turbulent swirl of water, the line straightened and the fish had simply hooked itself. This fish was the first of a couple on the pop up flakeys and i was very impressed with the presentation of them. These are the baits i will be replacing floating crust with this season targeting chub on small rivers. As the pop up flakey is essentially a boilie mix the bait is much more firm that bread though still retains a spongy feel, this therefor means smaller fish can pick away the bait off the hook as easy as crust.

Having taken a few carp off the surface on a standard set up I turned my attention to seeing if i could pick up my first carp on the fly. Something not very often seen on commercial fisheries I spoke to the bailiff before hand who assured me he was happy for me to chuck the fluff on the venue. A few heads turned at the top of the lake as they laid back in their chairs with rods poised on pods with silent alarms.

With the wind pushing bait towards the left hand side of the swim this was the area i was able to turn to and maintain a good cast rolling the deer hair fly under the over hanging branches and present a realistic looking mixer. A few cast determined what my limit was to how close i could get under the tree. landing the fly on the fly in the middle of a a number of free offering it didn't take long for a common to rise and take the fly, setting the hook the 8/9 rod hooped over and the battle commenced, stripping line through my left hand i was soon engaging with line on the reel which made playing the fish slightly easier though any runs towards me resulted in stripping line by hand to maintain contact, the net was soon slipped under a lovely common and my first on the fly!


I carried on chucking the fluff for until early afternoon taking a couple more carp though frustratingly pulling the fly out of the mouths of 20 or so in the process. I am not really one for commercials as they don't particularly appeal to me though changing an approach and style of fishing certainly adds  more of a challenge to venues such as this.