Found some carp in central Texas.  Threw a cast net over this one and then posed it next to a fly rod to make it all look, you know, legit.

As soon as I get done chasing birds I had better start tying!  There’ll be tailing fish in no time… February will be on us before we know it.  Not that you can’t catch em the rest of the year, but, by the time snipe season ends on February 14th I’ll be about ready to start the carp thing again.

¡Fabio, a la izquierda! I whispered not three minutes after we bailed off the panga so Pablo could pole the edge for Chad.  [Fabio, to the left!]

This was the first fish of the week, and it was almost too easy– the tailing pod of fish was roaming hungry and it was just a matter of quietly hurrying to cut them off.  A twitch on the Sucker Punch and the flat was burned.  Too bad the rest of the fish followed this little guy to the safety of deeper water.  We caught a lot of fish the rest of the week including this beauty that we could see coming from over a football field away in skinny water over white sand:

Yes, trash angler, bonefish do eat carp flies.  And you thought it was the other way around!

The new materials list is:

Rust thread.

Bead Chain Eyes – large (5/32″), black.

Centipede Legs – Montana Fly Company, Speckled Orange #801, size Mini #0.

Wapsi Life Cycle Peacock Dubbing, Crawdub Burnt Orange Dubbing.

Hot Orange Pheasant Rump.

Hooks are awfully personal, but, this one is tied on a #4 Mustad 3407 for bonefish*, skinny water reds, tailing black drum, and sheepshead.  For carp I usually use a #6 Mustad 3366.

Other color combinations I’m fishing are a shrimp pink (Softshell Crawdub, natural pheasant rump, and Speckled Tan legs) and a Texas Hill Country olive (Pale Olive Crawdub, olive pheasant rump, and Speckled Olive legs).

* ah, there I done did it… yeah, ok, so I might fish for a “gamefish” now and then.  But let’s be honest:  bonefish were thought of as trash for years, redfish are considered “saltwater carp” by many and I still sort of think of black drum and sheepshead as alternate species… if such a thing exists.