Carp

[DEADhead]

I fished the Otter Tail today and managed to catch a few carp.

They put a pretty good bend in the rod. One fish that I caught got turned around in the current and headed down stream. Flows were really high this morning, running about 1300 cfs. It felt like I snagged a log. My 9 wt was bent nearly in half, I though it was gonna break. I finally just horsed the be-jesus out of the rod to turn the fish around. After pulling like a mad man, I finally got the fish within range, and discovered it was a carp. I was not surprised.

I can't wait to head back down there when the game fish season opens, as it was difficult to keep the smallies and walleyes of the hooks in some spots. It was the maiden voyage for the new rod, reel and mastery wet tip line. All were put to the extremes today and performed with flying colors. One note to self though is to keep the hand out of the way when a carp is running. The knuckle on my pinky got rapped pretty good this morning, ouch!

[channelfats]

What kind of fly did you get that guy on?

I just started fly fishing, last week was my first time actually on water, and I caught everything but a fish!

Im starting on a 6 weight with the notion of just some panfish and smaller what-ever-else wants to eat my fly type fish, but I already can see myself bumping up to a 9 or so for carp, and what not. channels on a fly rod sounds like a dream to me!

I still have so much to learn though, fly fishing is very overwhelming, after only spin/bait casting my whole life.

Thanks for sharing, I will have to remember ottertail river for the future, I fish East Battle a couple times a year at a friends house on the lake.

[DEADhead]

oddly enough I took the carp on clouser minnows. The fish in the picture was caught on a a size 4 blue and white closer.

normally you would catch carp on wet flies and the like.

the stretch of the otter tail I was on is known for it's smallie fishing, but there are plenty of other species to be caught there, including channels. Those are little more tricky to catch with a fly; you need to get that fly down deep and to hug the bottom. Low flows and a heavy sinking link are the ticket to catching them. August is usaully a good time, because flows are down then.

[so haaad]

I believe those are suckers or maybe redhorse. I know from experience that they fight very, very well. Especially on a fly! So did you catch any of those bronze-colored, red-eyed devil fish???

[DEADhead]

yeah that was pointed out to me in the carp forum. I wasn't paying attention when I was posting the pics here, and I don't know what happened to the carp picture. The redhorse were equally as tough to fight though.

yeah, I caught plenty bronzebacks. It would be more fun to catch them if the season was open, cause I'm sure they would hit the crayfish patterns pretty good now. Managed a couple walleyes as well, one really nice male around 23". Just a few more weeks!