Carp in the Mud Flats

When the SE Ohio weather heats up, and the "prized" game fish move deep looking for relief from the hot weather, it's time to look shallow for carp.  The hard part is not usually finding the fish, it's finding them in good weather conditions to target them.  By good weather, I mean wind, and no wind is the best wind.  The carp flats are shallow and tend to be silty bottoms that get stirred up easily.  Spotting fish, when they aren't breaking the surface with their tails, is really tough when the wind is up.  Calm conditions almost never last long, but when they do, take advantage.

These are picture-perfect carping conditions on my favorite local lake.

The fish were not cooperating much on this trip.  I found a lot of "roamer" carp, and they can be difficult to track down.  I would spot a good bubble cloud from a feeding fish from a long ways off, paddle to it, and by the time I got there the fish had moved.  They were not staying put for long.  I dropped the fly on feeding fish a few times with no responses.  I also lined a couple of fish with disastrous consequences.  Finally, I got on a feeding fish and was able to see it break free from the mud into cleaner water, dropped the fly in its face, and it ate.  

The fish didn't strip much line, I never saw the backing, but I got a good sleigh ride across the lake.  After a few failed net attempts, I got her in the net.  I never got any measurements, but it was a pretty good fish.  Long and heavy.  

This fish had a serious paddle.

The fly that claimed this beast is one of my original designs that flies in the face of most conventional carp fly design.  A few things important to my most successful carp flies are built into this design: a bold outline for visibility in dirty water, a slow fall rate, and a buoyant tail that sticks up at rest.  I nicknamed this fly Smaug because it reminds me of one of those Chinese dragon costumes with a bobbing head.

The most popular question I get with this fly is "What do you think the fish think it is?" And honestly, I have no clue.  It could be a huge dragonfly nymph, an immature craw, a small fish, a leech...all I care about is they think it's food.  This fly has claimed nearly all of my carp on the fly that go over 30" in length.  Most carp flies are dainty, sparse, subtle, and this fly is basically the opposite of all those things.   Here's a video tutorial on tying the pattern: