Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 14 September 2016
In many countries around the globe it's still pretty uncommon to fly fish for carp. Why? I think because it takes a litte time and effort to get into some constant success.
Last week I hosted a fantastic fly fishing trip for coastal Sea trout at the Danish Baltic sea. It was tough fishing due to an extra hot late summer period providing us almost 20°Celsius water temperature. In such temperature trout almost completely stop feeding making it much harder for us to fool them in any way! Anyway we had a great time fly casting, fly tying and fly fishing. Of course we also caught some nice Sea trout!
Back home I directly run into a long fly fishing session for carp. Unlike trout carp love such warm water conditions. Since 2 years now I am publishing articles about fly fishing for carp. A lot of fine feedback in form of questions followed.
Here is another one I was asked several times:
When is the best time (of the day) to fly fish for carp?
It depends! You may want to learn the changes in water temperature, oxygen level and light conditions. These three key factors have huge impact on the carp's mood!
In many lakes - not all - the sun is shining all day long and due to that many (underwater) plants will produce oxygen! Thus the oxygen level increases as soon as the sun comes in. Instead sunset means all plants will slow down to produce oxygen. During the night some plants will die = additionally reducing oxygen. So we have lowest level of oxygen in the very early morning and highest in the late afternoon. This means in the very early morning carp may show up on the surface (due to relatively low oxygen) but due to a little colder water still be in a pretty reactive mood! Carp can handle low oxygen to some degree.
Make sure to look into all shadowed spots - carp love these often. This also makes the early morning an excellent time to start the day with some serious fly fishing.
These early late summer mornings often provide the oppurtunity of excellent sight fishing for carp. Fantastic sort of fly fishing it is. Challenging!
Seriously if you have a carp water near by: Give it a change - it's a great sort of fly fishing well worth some tries. For me it has entered my favorite ways of fly fishing for sure!
A great summer week to all of you on the same side of the planet and a nice winter to all other!
All my best
Bernd
Fishing every day...