My wife and I just returned from a short vacation to NE Missouri and the Dallas area to visit family. While in Missouri I took the opportunity to visit the river where I originally got hooked by the fishing bug, a small tributary of the Mississippi. My intended targets were pre-spawn walleye and white bass, instead I ended up coaxing a 10-12 lb big head carp to inhale a chartreuse & white clouser. I was a bit surprised that the fish grabbed a fly since it’s pretty much a filter feeder, but it seemed to be a solid take during a dead drift and the fish was hooked from the inside of its mouth.
After that long winded introduction, I’ve got two questions. First does anyone know of fly patterns that have been designed to take silver and big head carp? And second, does anyone know of recent work that documents the impact of the population explosion of these two invasive species? As an aside we’ve noticed a tremendous falloff in the number of spawning walleye & white bass since the appearance of silver and big head carp.
The state wildlife department ought to be a good source of info on carp impact.
As for the carp pattern question, the “plain jane” carp here in TX prefer aquatic insects, nymphs etc. The patterns used by those in the know (not me, I’m just referencing those who are in the know ) are lightly weighted, dull colored with minimal flash. now those big head and silver carp might be different enough to make the above useless info. But hopefully it’ll be a bit of help.
There is one fellow here in N. Texas Long Haired Dave, who has quantified the techniques for carp stalking. He gave a great presentation in Athens TX at the Freshwater Fisheries Center last month on carping on the fly. His website is [url=http://www.trashonthefly.com:aa74a]http://www.trashonthefly.com[/url:aa74a]
What is a big headed carp? Are they native or introduced? How big to they get? The two books I’ve read on carp “Carp On The Fly” and “Carp Are Gamefish” never mention them as a species.
They are invading the Missouri river system pretty quickly. Not sure where they are coming from. Have not looked into it.
The silver carp are interesting in that they jump out of the water when boats and jet skis are running close by. They have landed in and on both hitting the people riding/driving them. Someone probably planted them to stop the jet skiers!!
I am looking for a picture of the silver carp. Will post back if I find one.
Thanks guys for the info. Shame on me. I posed the same question on another unnamed forum and got squat. I should’ve known to go straight to the FAOL forum.
Robin - Thanks for the link to N Texas Long Haired Dave’s website. I’ll keep that URL in my hip pocket as we often visit family and friends in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Thanks also for the common carp pattern info. I bet dark olive and black bunny leeches and woolly buggers may do the trick as I think the bighead carp were feeding on algae.
Poke flyfisher - I wish I had never seen a bighead or silver carp, as their numbers seem to be exploding in some of the rivers that I grew up on. So please consider yourself lucky not to know what the darn things are. I see that Don posted a link to a picture of a bighead carp. It’s a fairly ugly fish with its eyes sitting low on its head. The silver carp looks exactly the same except its chrome from stem to stern. They grow to fairly impressive sizes too. I’ve seen examples of both fish that had to be over 40 lbs.
Don - Thanks for posting a picture of a bighead carp. I wished I had a camera with me when I caught the one referenced in my original post. I was surprised that the fish grabbed the fly because they reportedly are filter feeders that eat only zooplankton and algae. I guess they were imported from Asia to fish farms in Arkansas and Southern Missouri to improve water quality but escaped to the Mississippi River where they reproduced and invaded the Missouri and Illinois Rivers. At first they seemed to be a novelty but now they seem to be having some negative effects on native fish populations. It seems like we’re seeing lower numbers of both forage and game fish every year when we return to Missouri.
Wow! Those fish are ugly ugly!! Thanks for posting a photo. They really don’t look much like a common carp (absence of large scales, different mouth structure, strange eye placement etc.) Anybody know what their scientific name is? Just what we need, another exotic species to put our other fish at risk. Somebody do something!!
We got bunches of em here in IL too. They were introduced by accident during the big flood in the early 90’s. Seems catfish farms used them to filter their ponds. Floods washed them into the rivers. I’ve had 20 pounders jump right in my boat. Heard of people getting broken noses and dislocated shoulders getting hit by the buggers. They put in a electric fish barrier in the upper Mississippi to try to keep them out of the big lakes. We bowfish for the nasty critters.
) are lightly weighted, dull colored with minimal flash. now those big head and silver carp might be different enough to make the above useless info. But hopefully it’ll be a bit of help.