The bluegill, crappie, catfish and bass have been fun, but I want a huge carp!! Eat the fly and rip backing off my reel.
So stop posting on the internet and go catch one! What are you waiting for?
take your fly line, remove the backing, cut 50 feet off the back end of the fly line then retie the backing on. hope this little tip helps.
Eric
Or… you can do like I do and clean your fly line in the kitchen sink just because you want to make sure that the backing is still there:)
Jim Smith
Try to hook a decent size bass and set your drag as light as possible. That works for me.
Tim
Backing???
I just looked thru the little holes in the side of one of my reels and sure enough, the backing is there–or at least some sort of line that is different than what is on the top of the spool.
George
lol… good un. I’ve landed two catfish in the ten pound class on my three weight and I ain’t seen it yet. 
Don’t know how many new “warmwater” fishermen I’ve told, “The next time you see your backing is when you change your fly line”. 
Maybe that big carp in good current. Good luck. We’re pulling for you.
the easiest way to catch carp this time of year is to find a mulberry tree that hangs over the water. tie up something purple and mulberry sized and toss it in on a long leader. carp are very good at spitting out things that aren’t mulberrys so be ready to set the hook immediately on the take… if you need them to hold on for longer try soaking your fly in mulberry juice (or putting a real one on a bare hook, if you can live with yourself afterwards…I won’t tell)
Some of it depends on the rod and the drag setting of course. I don’t see my backing often these days but I am also fishing for smaller carp in streams right now. The first carp that I caught was on a 5 weight and she was huge, I could barely move her and she broke me off. The second fish that I hooked I had the drag set very lightly and that fish wanted to go into the next county by running down stream. These days I am fishing mostly with my 7 weight unless I am targeting larger fish. Larger fish get the 8 wt as standard equipment and big fish in current the 9 wt comes out. Early on in my carp fishing adventures I fished with my 3 wt and there I used light tippet to match. I landed a 30" carp on 5X tippet with my 3 weight and it took 52 minutes. I said that I would never do that to me or the fish again. That fish reminded me of a rabbit in that it ran straight away in a larger river system. I could not chase that fish down the bank. I saw my backing and thought that I was going to loose my backing and fly line when the fish turned in a circle like a kicked up rabbit and returned to it’s place where it wanted to be. The other thing that took so long is that I was by myself and needed to net that fish myself. Having someone else there to assist with the netting is always a grand thing.
If you want to learn more for free listen to these two men who wrote the book (literally, the title being: Carp on the Fly)
http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/speakers/brad/brad.cfm
Both audio programs are on my Ipod and I have listened to both of them often.
I don’t want to overload this post with too much info but if you want more carp links I have over 20 in my favorites.
While I am a TU member and attend meetings and fish for trout often, no brookie pulls like a brown freight train. Even if they are not your favorite targeted species like they are mine, they will give you experience with larger fish. If you are planning a trip to Alaska to fish for large salmon and you only fish for gills or smaller trout you are missing out on a great learning experience by fishing for carp.
This picture was shot 3 days ago on a small stream, actually a classified trout stream. The net is a Brodin Coho salmon net.
I took these pictures while eating/drinking at a floating restaurant at a nearby marina this past weekend. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fishing.
You can see a bunch of small fish swimming around above these carp. I’m not really sure, but they might be shad fry?
I sure wish the carp would swarm me like this when I’m actually FISHING! :toothy11:
Looks like a place to make a mental note of Dave.
Have to extend my story some about my last time out fishing. I am fighting a fish and the net is already out when I notice one of my friends from our local TU walking up to talk to me. I KNOW that he doesn’t think highly of carp, but he is still interested when he sees someone with an obviously nice fish on a fly rod. I take advantage of him being there and ask him to snap a picture of me. Most of my shots are with the fish and the equipment and I rarely get into the photos unless someone is there with me.
So he takes the shot and we chat for a bit when I tell him that I have another rod in the car and ask if he would like to join in the fun. He turns me down quickly with ALMOST the attitude that he wouldn’t be caught dead fishing for carp. We talk some more and I notice that he is wearing a Hydros cap. We start talking about rods and I tell him that my older St. Croix Legend Elite weights exactly the same as a Hydros in the 7 wt, 9’ rod that I am throwing because I consider one but didn’t think that I would see any advantage. Anyhow this lead to: Go cast my rod and tell me what you think. Now I have his interest. He takes my rod and as we walk over to the water I spot some fish. I said, “just to make your casting experience relative, cast to the feeding end of that fish” He casts over to the fish and I go on to explain that carp are not going to run down your fly like a bass or a trout and that you have to hit the “zone” or be very accurate in your casting. He makes a couple of casts, I see the fish take the fly and yell “set the hook, set the hook!” Now when this fish is ripping drag I can see his face go from one of “what the hell am I doing here?” to “This is damn fun”
The fish then runs across the stream and into some heavy weeds which he just kind of allows and it gets wrapped up and breaks him off. I ask when the last brookie that he caught did that. Now, he has been smitten. We walk and stalk and talk about fly placement, need for a low profile and not silhouetting yourself against the skyline and being very quiet because they have a webarian apparatus which allows them to hear better than a trout and voices will put them down. After some casting he sees refusal after refusal and says something like they are right here but won’t take the fly. I said, "of course, they know that you are fishing for those fish and nothing that you do from now on will make those fish bite that fly. Let’s go find some undisturbed fish to cast too while we stay back from the water’s edge.
He caught another carp, which we landed this time and I could almost hear the gears in his head start to turn as he reconsidered carp fishing. If one has an open mind and you are a catch and release fisherman, carp just have a lot to offer. Close to home opportunities abound. I even said to him while we were stalking and spotting that he should just pretend I was his spotter in Argentina stalking large brown trout, because to get a similar chance at a similarly large brown trout on a regular basis that is where you would need to go instead of driving the 10 minutes to this spot for the both of us.
If YOU haven’t tried carp fishing, put on some drab clothes and go give it a try. Don’t wear that bright yellow or peachy colored shirt that you see on the front of the fly fishing magazines and you might be pleasantly surprised.
Rick
Awesome! That’s a great story Rick! 
Carp fishing is sight fishing but sometimes water can be brown or green. if Carp are present but the water is not clear try chumming the carp with bread or, my favorite, dry dog food. carp will eat dry cat food also.
a few handfuls thrown on the surface should get carp to cloop (feed on the surface). the process can take a few minutes to half an hour to get going; then try a deer hair fly, even a big elk hair caddis will work too.
Always have a plan for how you will play the carp or the carp will play. carpin requires stealth, patients, and accuracy with your casts.
Bill
Rick,
there is an old gypsy poem that reads: Even a man who is pure at heart and fishes for trout day and night, may became a carp fisher when the mulberry blooms and the summer moon is bright!
I’ve been able to infect trout bums and even a striper bum with carpin fever. carpin is like free lap dances, it never grows old!
Bill
The first chance I get I will be headed to a local lake and fishing the flats for carp. I hope the bigger fish are up and feeding, I want to test the new reel that I put on my 6wt.
First off, you’re fishing too heavy a rod, Steve. Everyone knows the really big fish only hit when you’re throwing a 2wt with 8x tippet.
We could make a trip to Hillsdale with 2wts if you have time for it. Colud lose a lot of flies fishing like that.
Well that would solve your problem of having to many flies now wouldn’t it.
You up to it Larry? That could be the next thursday night trip. Olathe Lake carp, I wonder if Betty would go?