You knew it had to happen. Carp articles are popping up like mushrooms after a forest fire, and suddenly, every fly fisher will proudly tell you he fished for carp years ago – before it was cool. (Have I told you I fished for carp when I lived in the Bay Area — before it was cool?)
Hell, I even reserved the CarpUnderground.com domain name, realizing that in a few years, trout will be considered a trash fish.
Now we have absolute, final proof that the carp has ascended to occupy the highest echelons in The Quiet Sport: Jim Teeny has just released a Carp Fly Line. From their literature:
Pat Ehler?s Carp Line - Carp require stealth, accuracy and often, longer casts. Pat Ehler?s flyline delivers on all of these situations. The unique taper makes this an accurate casting line that can be cast for distance or can fight the wind. His choice of line color is to help make a stealthy presentation. The line is a sage green color that will not spook fish, while the front four feet is yellow to maintain visible contact with the line tip. Sight casting is easier with this line color combination.
You probably don’t need a blogger to point out that the “sage green color that won’t spook fish” isn’t the color of line tip (the part closest to the fish), which is a bright yellow (which presumably will spook fish), but we’re not here to nitpick.
In truth, we’re heartened to see the firm, pouty lips of carp finally getting the kisses they deserve from fly fishers, and in fact, we can see the endgame already:
Property values along trout streams will plummet as fly fishermen abandon the countryside, moving back to the dirty, warm, carp-friendly waters of urban areas. Brownlining will replace bluelining, and angst-ridden, world-hating steelheaders will become angst-ridden, world-hating carp flatters.
Because we’re nothing if not a trendsetter here on the Underground, we’re going to visit Jim Teeny’s booth at the FFR show and learn more about their new carp line, and then report it here. Seriously. (I mean, a serious report.)
Any Carp Thoughts among the Undergrounders?
See you at the on the carp flats, Tom Chandler.
[tags]fly fishing, carp, fly fishing for carp, fly line, jim teeny, fly fishing retailer show[/tags]
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I have a thought, if you get comped a Carp line, I will take you and the tackle of your choice to “Selenium City” the selective stretch of the Little Stinking.
You draw blood on a carp, and I drink a quart from whichever mud puddle you point at…
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See, I thought you were going to demand the CarpUnderground.com domain.
And buddy — I’ve already drawn blood on carp. When I lived in the Bay Area, I wasn’t just sitting around Starbucks picking up babes, you know.
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I GUIDED carp before it was cool. I used to drag the boat up into a backwater where big carp were common and have my clients throw woolly buggers at them, just to impress with some cutting-edge sight fishing (they always spooked off, because we didn’t have the Teeny line I’m sure) The clients would be humbled and impressed and then would catch some smallies and feel better and tip heavy.
Then one day one of the carp actually ate the fly and ran sixty yards down the gut and out into the main stem of the river and up forty more yards of class II riffle while I thrashed after with roe and wade. The fish, which went 13 pounds, a dink by anybody’s standard, then hung stationary in the current for ten minutes while the poor guy leaned on his six-weight and sweated, then ran all over the place again. When I finally got close it broke my Orvis fancy wooden boat net and knocked my coffee cup into the drink and slimed me up one side and down the other. The client refused to touch the fish and declined a picture. I stuck with bass from that point on.
Dave
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Oh, yeah, I remember the joke:
I already have a carp line. It’s a hundred yards of black dacron attached to a barbed arrow.
(can we say that here?)
Dave
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I caught a carp on a fly line before it was cool. When I was a kid, fishing for the almighty bluegill, a carp took my dry fly, broke my rod tip before I landed him. Well, something broke my rod tip, anyway. Who knows? We used to wade in the shallows, and shoot them with a .22 pistol. That was before the days of catch and release, of course. We never brought them home to eat. We didn’t know about what the French do with them, but then, they eat snails. Have you heard the stories about foi gras? So much for the French and their dietary habits. They can have my share of the carp.
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I just use a bonefish line, carp’re kinda like bonefish you know.
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Here in Texas we fish for carp with dynamite. I don’t what all the hoopla’s about,they don’t put up much of a fight.
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I think it’s the obvious appeal to the “executive angler” that is driving Carp-mania. Think about it…
You take a long lunch break or head out right after work. You head to the nearest “cement pond” in an urban park or polluted stream through a city park or your favorite golf course. I mean, they even stock carp in urban FOUNTAINS! And they do get big enough for all those wonderful “fish porn” pictures that prove to your co-workers that you DA MAN!
To top it all off, you were able to save the $3,000 for the trip to Patagonia or Montana. No need to pay $600/day for a float plane to take you to the fish. So you’ve got all that extra jingle to stuff into strippers’ g-strings at the gentlemen’s club out by the airport!
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Fly Fishing Conspiracy Theory of the Day: I suppose a dedicated carper could make use of a carp-specific fly line, but I now believe all these speciality fly lines are money losers — but their production is subsidized by the reel industry in an attempt to sell reels and spare spools.
Someone signal the black helicopters, please.
As for all those who are shooting, impaling, or exploding carp, well, the Internet never forgets, and with a sorry past like that, you probably won’t gain entry into the CarpUnderground.com. Commence weeping.
Finally, KW: I think those big-dollar executive vacations are desirable precisely because they do cost so much (e.g. — there won’t be much in the way of riffraff around).
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I dunno, Tom. I’ve met a LOT of riff-raff with money. And I still say they’d rather spend it on strippers, hookers, and booze.
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I can’t say I fished for them before it was cool, but I can say I do now and love it.
We’ll know that fly rodding for Carp is truly in the mainstream when people are paying $3k to go fish for them.
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Carp are those big, ugly, bony things we used to catch occasionally as kids when fishing for catfish (or whatever else we could catch). I’ve always thought there were a couple of letters transposed in the name. But they’ve obviously caught on, for whatever reason. Speaking of trash fish, are there any other old goats around who remember when redfish were so regarded? Look what’s happened with those. What’s next, bowfin in fresh water (now there’s a fighting, leaping, inedible, great fish) or toadfish in salt (none of the above qualities except inedibility)?
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I like the dynamite idea, but I suspect that kind of fishing requires a special license, at least in the urban areas.
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While casting a #14 elk hair caddis during a caddis hatch (yep we have ‘em even in Texas)to stocker (of course) trout on the Trinity River below Lake Lewisville I kept trying for the much larger carp that were joining in the surface feed with the trout. Finally I happened in one (must have been the dummy of the school)and after a considerable battle, beached and then released him. This was using the Rainshadow 6′6″ 2-weight I built this winter. Prettiest carp I’ve even seen!
Click here for the picture.
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Nice fish Graham!
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Thanks, how about the rod and reel :)? the line wasn’t the Teeny — I’m sure they don’t offer it in 2-weight. I had one other carp on on that river but it broke off pretty quickly when I put too much pressure on him, that was on a #18 PT bead head though.
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