Comments on: The Underground Tries To Go Mainstream: Our First pre-FFR Show Product Report

By: The Fly Line Wars Rage: The Underground Begins a Pair of Tests : The Trout Underground Fly Fishing Blog

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:47:55 +0000

[...] we made sport of Teeny lines for introducing a Carp-specific fly line, but that’s simply on expression of the fly line industry’s mania for producing a [...]

By: Graham

Graham — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:02:18 +0000

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.

By: SMJ

SMJ — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:22:53 +0000

Nice fish Graham!

By: Graham

Graham — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:48:53 +0000

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.

By: Kentucky Jim

Kentucky Jim — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:17:34 +0000

I like the dynamite idea, but I suspect that kind of fishing requires a special license, at least in the urban areas.

By: Don Luis

Don Luis — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:26:49 +0000

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)?

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:11:18 +0000

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.

By: KW Morrow

KW Morrow — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:03:12 +0000

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.

By: Tom Chandler

Tom Chandler — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:58:58 +0000

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).

By: KW Morrow

KW Morrow — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:31:49 +0000

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!

By: frogmorton

frogmorton — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 11:24:47 +0000

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.

By: flytimes

flytimes — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:49:26 +0000

I just use a bonefish line, carp’re kinda like bonefish you know.

By: Kentucky Jim

Kentucky Jim — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:45:31 +0000

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.

By: Dmotes

Dmotes — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:11:27 +0000

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

By: Dmotes

Dmotes — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:10:37 +0000

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