Howdy, folks.
I live in Boulder, CO, and was hoping some locals could give me some information on public carp lakes and ponds in the Boulder/Ft. Collins area. After a long summer of intense trout fishing, I’m hoping to catch a few carp before winter sets in. Anyone know of any good spots open to the public?
JBW
Cmon ya’ll. The guy wants to catch a carp. Any help out there?
Well, anyway, good luck. If you’re ever in Central Texas there’s a couple of spots I can direct you to. Love them carp!
Aww… c’mon, you don’t have to be ashamed! Just like you guys I wear a funny hat, carry a bamboo rod way up in the mountains and catch trout, I am just looking for a change.
Swallow your pride, fellow Coloradans, and cough up the carp advice! I know you carpers are out there! You can’t hide forever!
JBW
P.S. If you guys can’t help me, I’m going to have to turn to a spin-fish website! I have no doubt that those guys know all the awesome carp spots and the tricks to catch them! I want to catch the colorado golden bonefish before everything freezes up!
Hey texnfly, where are you talking about in Central Texas? I live in Houston and have caught one carp on a fly - it took me two years to do it.
thanks
Jordan
If no one responds then let me suggest researching the tactics for carp and then go looking for them in the area. If its anything at all like around here then most bodies of water are going to be replete with carp.
From what I have gathered, the thing to do is to find where they are feeding in the shallows, stalk them and drop a nymph closeby so that they’ll swim upon it, then give 'er a wiggle and hold on.
Also, if there are areas where they eat berries then one could “match the hatch” with a berry fly (or whatever they are eating).
I have never heard of any consistent success with blind casting for carp, I’ve certainly never had any.
Oh, one more thing; those carp that are frolicking and splashing, don’t even waste your time - whatever they are doing it won’t involve eating, at least not any flies tossed at them. Or so goes the consensus and my limited experience.
best
Robin
i can’t help with any local info, but in general, look for feeding fish and put a fly on their nose. it sounds much simpler than it is, but if you can find some fish just keep casting until one eats. carp are pretty much all i fish for anymore, but i’m here in OR and can’t help much with CO locations. i wrote an article that might help with some basics for the American Carper, september issue. if interested you can find it here:
http://www.americancarpsociety.com:8080 … azine.html
sorry! don’t know much locations in CO! good luck with carp, my favorite gamefish!
I know of John from another site and believe me he knows what he is talking about. I would also like to add thatI have had success here in Pennsylvania using crayfish patterns and Ian Colin James’ “Puke Fly”. Carp are fairly easy to find, but at times can be tough to catch. Good Luck!
Ray
I landed another river carp recently, and once again did not get as good a fight as the lake fish I caught a while ago (was still fun, but no long, drag burning runs). Is this consistent with everyone else’s experience, that still water carp fight better than carp in moving water?
Jordan,
I really do not know of any places near Boulder or Fort Collins. I know of a couple places in Denver along the South Platte River though.
Give Front Range Anglers (http://www.frontrangeanglers.com/index.htm) a call. They might be able to point you to some carp water.
Good luck
Paul
i fish for carp in some local lakes and ponds, but they don’t fight nearly as well as the fish i catch in the columbia river. columbia river carp don’t weight as much…they are really lean and my local spots have some short, fat carp, but the columbia fish tear you up.
eich is right on with the crayfish pattern tip. i use crayfish type of flies a lot.
here is a nice columbia river carp:
Hey John, thanks for replying. I’ll have to try a couple of other rivers out, and see if there’s a difference in the midwest.
By the way, great post on your site this weekend; I agree whole-heartedly, that carp fishing is very much akin to hunting. Not having had much success with salt-water angling, I’ll bet sight fishing for bones has that same quality.
As a fellow houstonian (at the moment) I can tell you that carp reside in all the forgotten waterways in the city.
yes i’m talking about the bayous. I’ve caught both the grass and common varieties. No need to go driving to austin…this one was caught about 3 minutes from my house.
i’ve seen some monsters swimmin around, but 5-10 lbs seems to be the common fish. they bayous have a lot of fish in them…i wouldnt eat any of them…but i don’t mind catching them 
I’ve chased the elusive Bellaire bonefish several times but can never get them to take a fly. I’ve gotten the fly to sweep right to them in the current numerous times, but no lookie.
Can you give me a few tips, thanks.
Thinking about going this weekend.
The successful tips that I have heard (mind you I have been to a few carp-on-the-fly seminars but have not tackled them myself yet) are to look for tailing carp, stalk them without spooking them and drop a lightly weighted nymph where they are going to be so that they can come across it and eat it.
Dave Speer here in North Texas has a carp guiding business, is one of the most successful carpers I know of. These are his tips in a nutshell.
He also noted that those carp seen jumping and splashing, not too sure what they are doing but what they are not doing is feeding. So look for the ones rooting in the weeds in the shallows.
Dave sells carp flies http://www.trashonthefly.com
billboytx, someone else may have had a different experience, but I’ve found it very difficult to present a fly to carp in any sort of current. I usually hit the slow water, or eddies and pooles with little to no current. You said “sweep”, and in my experience, for streamers the carp want the fly on the bottom, crawling or bouncing (by bouncing I mean in the same place, not tumbling downstream), or even still. I know guys who target them in the current, but I believe they are typically using caddis during a hatch.
You may very well be successful with what you’re trying, but I usually take the easy road and eliminate the current from making the presentation for a difficult fish to fool even harder.
best tip i can give a guy is to feed the fly to the fish. i put the fly right to them. if i can get it to sink withing 6 inches or so of their mouth, they usually take it as soon as it hits bottom. if i have to strip the fly back to the fish, i don’t get nearly as many takes. most feeding carp will eat a fly, but not all of them will chase a fly, so put it right on their plate.
also, it helps if you can see the fly. i’ve caught hundreds of carp and only “felt” a handful of takes. by the time you feel a take, they’ll get rid of it. my hookups are almost 100% visual.
good luck!
If I remember, you might check out the prairie lakes. There was one near Stearling that was a very good warmwater lake that surely had carp in it. Had a girl friend from out there back around 1970. Course it could be a ghost town by now and the lake dried up. Brush had a lake, so did a lot of other places. JGW
im definitely not an expert…but i’ve had best luck when i’m targeting actively feeding fish.
cruising, holding, or fish doing anything besides either actively taking surface fodder or nose down filtering thru the bottom are not viable targets.
also watch for the grass being mowed along the bayou embankments…the grassies will line up like it’s a mayfly hatch.