I just went and tied up three ridiculous flies and have hatched a plan to catch a carp on one tomorrow morning before the rest of the household have stirred from their slumbers. I have a poor record in the reservoir I will visit which is only partly down to my own ineptitude. The carp themselves are not blameless in this unfortunate state of affairs since they truth is that they cannot be relied on to show up and, without them putting in an appearance, all will come to nothing.

It takes two to tango.

The flies are tied with a copper coloured bead head and three yellow feathers which turned up from somewhere and are lying around on my bench. In general size and profile they might not be crazily unlike a crayfish or a damsel nymph or some such thing. I am hoping that the carp have pretty good imaginations!

The general theory is that the bead head will allow them to sink but they are bright enough to be reasonably visible, not only to me, but to my tango partner should they choose to show up. My experience of carp is that they are pretty easily spooked by splashes and so flies should not land close to them and that they are also easily spooked if the leader touches them. These things I have learned, as you can imagine, the hard way. The best tactic is to cast beyond the fish and draw the fly in front of its head before letting it drop. That, at least is the theory. The Americans, many of whom are hopelessly besotted with catching carp on the fly, call this “drag and drop”.

So we´ll see what happens. If you don´t read a follow up post to this one you can just assume that it was just me standing under the glitter ball and that my dance partner simply didn´t show up.

We´ve all been there!