Friday Texas Fly Fishing Report

It’s time for another fly fishing report from Texas, for and about Texas! PPV reading – skiff advantage and techniques.

Besides the original Texas Fly Fishing Report on YouTube (your first stop of course!), I also provide information targeted to what is happening with the fish I specialize in guiding for carp, here in North Texas. And my information is even more specific to Lake Ray Roberts, Texas, carp on fly, BUT you should interpret this information for your pursuits of fish on fly – wherever you are.

This information, as all information, has value. It is open reading for subscribers, and you too can read it by simply inserting a quarter in the slot, or better yet; subscribe to this website for access to all the Pay-Per-View stories found here! (And don’t tell anybody, but if you subscribe there’s a discount on guided trips!)

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I have been on the water twice this week, and the carp are a little finicky – eating so much vegetation right now that they seem full, and when caught they are sporting distended bellies. I was first clued in to what they were up to when I saw floating grass in the Buck Creek access area.

There are already vast areas where carp have stripped away that vegetation (I call it grass because I don’t know what it is called), and are rooting around underneath that grass – perhaps eating the base, or new sprouts, or bugs underneath. I can’t bring myself to dissect a carp and inspect their digestive track …

Things are just not that difficult overall, a soft presentation, and a “leave” not a stripping presentation are key. The “leave” means you leave the fly alone in front and close to the rooting carp. If you see mud clouds, first try to make tails and heads of the fish, and drop it on the boiling mud – let it settle down into the invisible.

I base my “lift-strip-set” mostly on time, although I have no real count, much more like an instinctive timing I guess I would call it. If there’s not resistance, let it drop right back down into that cloud (we are at point-blank range), and try again! If the cloud is still there, the fish is still eating, rooting and ready to take. A carp eating like this has some of its keen senses turned off, and is operating in what I call “Full On Eat Mode.” The odds, for once, are in your favor!

FROM THE CASTING DECK

Our view from the deck of the skiff makes a huge difference these days! I am able to target shots at better distances than ever before – out of range of a typical common carp’s senses – and it is easy to setup successive shots. If one shot fails, I can call out the next one, and still not cause one of those carp stampedes that comes from running a distant fish through the herd of grazers nearer to my position. If you have ever fly fished for carp, you know how frustrating the stampedes can be. From the deck, we start with the fish on the outer edges, and there have been numerous times when we can pick one off and the herd has no clue what’s happening! Amazing.

As you saw from today’s YouTube video Texas Fly Fishing Report 060917, once there’s a take, things can and do go a little crazy with some fish! These weather shifts and temperature shifts make me believe each carp is behaving in its own unique way right now. If we lose a few degrees of water temperature today, with this rain, I think the carp will go even wilder than they have been earlier in this week. That’s a great problem to have!

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