Carp on the Brain

The recent acquisition of the paddle board has got nothing but shallow water carp on my mind.  Due to the little guy being sick for much of the past week, vise time was non-existent for several days.  I was finally able to sit down and play yesterday, adding to my carp box a few new colors of the carp mop fly I posted a few months back.

My only "mops" I have been able to locate were a gray color, and a bright green.  I played yesterday with a quick dye job on the gray mop segments, hoping to turn gray into a couple of other usable colors for carp patterns.  I used some Rit liquid dye, in a dark blue and a bright orange, to produce these "new" colors.  I was immediately happy with the dark blue, the orange-dyed segments I wasn't sure about until they dried.  I really dig the way that color came out.

The key method I use in this carp fly is sort of a complex twist method, made famous by the Fly Fish Food boys, but due to the materials I use more of a composite loop technique to make it work.  I'm still combining feather and flash, but since India hen back feathers are so delicate, I put the materials in a loop.  I lay some Arizona Diamond Dub on a feather I prep by trimming the tip and fluffy stem.

That combination of material is then inserted into a dubbing loop, spun, picked out, and wrapped.  It usually needs an additional brushing once it's all wrapped and tied off, also.  The end result is a really buggy combination of the feather and flashy dubbing.

Of course, rubber legs had to be added because I can't tie a carp fly without them.  The fly is then finished off with a sparse dubbing loop of just the Diamond Dub, wrapped over the lead eyes and tied off at the hook eye.  This fly looks great in the test tank, and any fly I have tested on carp that has an appendage that sticks up off the bottom tends to produce carp.  I'm really excited to put this fly in front of some tailing fish this spring!