Dry flies for carp

I never really hear of people fishing dry flies for carp. I have seen carp eat bugs off the surface I can imagining a 25 LB carp taking a dry flie could induce a cardiac arrest. Im not going to ask what type of flies to use, because thats like asking what is the best bait in the world, But what is the best way to retrieve fry flies for carp. Should I just let them sit, or should I strip them in? This is still water by the way

Let them sit. BTW, the dries I've seen all have tended to look a lot like cottonwood seed. Carp love them. And it is an easy fly to tie.

Those cotton wood seed flies will be the first fly I tie. THey are all over this one pond and I have seen the carp crash to the surface and eat them

[Joe Billingsley]

Anthony,
Try nothing more than a white CDC Oiler Puff or a clump of white CDC barbs tied to the hook. Can't tell it from the cottonwood seed on the water.
Joe

[Jax]

Anthony; I have sorted quite a few Carp using a Parachute Madam X #14. have fun. Jax

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Getting Old has it's advantages. It slows you down just enough to get your timing for tightening into a trout Just Right.

[LadyFisher]

I caught my largest carp as a kid, using my dad's bamboo rod near the mouth of the AuSable River in Michigan. The fly was a Royal Coachman. My dad smoked the fish and it was great!

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LadyFisher, Publisher of
FAOL

[Steven]

I've caught carp on grasshopper patterns in Yellowtail reservoir in Montana (feeds the Bighorn).

I've also stung, but never landed, huge grass carp on deer hair poppers.

LF,

If you liked smoked carp, try and find a real Jewish deli. Smoked carp is marketed as "sable."

-Steven

[Joe Billingsley]

Here's a link to Brad Befus' Cottonwood Seed Fly with CDC.
[url=http://www.nkyflyfishers.org/Docs/CDC%20Cottonwood%20Seed.pdf:6fa07]http://www.nkyflyfishers.org/Docs/CDC%20Cottonwood%20Seed.pdf[/url:6fa07]

If cottonwood seeds are on the water, this is deadly.
Joe

[dejongster]

Being new to this, what is CDC?

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Randy de Jong, rank beginner but willing to learn

[lee sieckmann]

I caught my first carp on the surface with a dry fly in a large canal near Phoenix. There was an algae bloom late in the day, and the algae was rising to the surface like yeast in a cup when you are proofing it for bread. It was coming up in clumps and the carp were rising to it like trout to a mayfly hatch. I greased a medium olive mohair woolly worm, got below a nice one and made the cast. He rose and took just like a trout except much larger than most trout.

This winter I observed the carp in a nearby lake swimming around on the surface with their mouths open scooping in something off the surface. I never did deterine what they were eating. I tried to intercept their line of "scooping" with nondescript dry flies, but was unsucessful. I'm pretty sure it was vegtable but they were very selective and spooky.

I have my best luck with a hair nymph when they are tipped up and have their noses in the mud.