Makeshift Strike Indicators

When I found myself with all my strike indicators sitting at home in a situation that required one for success, I thought about how I could improvise. Thinking about the times I accidentally catch a leaf, I remembered how well it floated, but how it made casting hard. I came up with a great way of saving the day of fishing with my makeshift strike indicator. I plucked a blade of grass and tied the grass itself to my leader using an overhand knot. The grass will slide down the leader, so you'll need to have a surgeon's knot (or whatever your favorite knot it) connecting your tippet to give the grass a stopper. Tie your tippet the right length, leave the tag end of your surgeon's knot just a little longer than normal, and you've got a makeshift strike indicator! It's not the most durable, and it won't float back to the surface if you sink it, but grass is nearly unlimited in supply, it won't splash at all, and doesn't impede your casting. In a pinch, it can save the day!

A blade of grass can serve as a makeshift strike indicator in a pinch!

Ingenuity Saves the Day

With the recent rains, every stream in the area is completely blown out. I haven't found a lake/pond/reservoir in the area yet with good wading or shore access to carp spots, so I'm "stuck" fishing the C&O Canal for now. Of course, the canal was chocolate milk. We're talking 6 inches of visibility or less. I could see obvious signs of the carp - silt plumes contrasting with the muddy water - but aside from the occasional fish surfacing for a few seconds, I couldn't see one to save my life. I realized if I wanted to catch a fish, I had to throw an indicator. Of course, I open up my fly box and remember I lost my last indicator in that box last time I was out, and I didn't bring the replacements. I also realize I don't even have so much as a popper or a dry fly to drop my nymph off. Bummed out that I probably wasted a trip, I got desperate and relied on some good old fashioned ingenuity to create a makeshift strike indicator. I grabbed a blade of grass and tied it in a knot above my tippet. I test cast, and it worked. First cast to a fish, I see the twitch of the grass, and boom! I'm on. I popped that one off, though, after a couple minutes. Next fish gets to the net - a nice 6.5 lb well colored fish. The following one breaks me off on a branch. My last fish of the day was a monster. I never saw his whole body - only his tail. This guy went off on a tear and I had no way to slow him down. He zigged around a branch almost immediately and kept pulling line. He zagged again around a second branch. My fly line is completely gone, and I'm dipping deep into my backing. I can see him splashing at the surface almost 100 yards down the canal, wrapping around at least a third branch. I've never had a carp take me that far into backing before. At this point, the fish must have wrapped himself enough times that he could put enough slack to throw the hook, leaving me with the slow, sad process of reeling in 100+ yards of slack backing and line.

A day of frustration

I found myself with a few hours after work on Friday to hit the C&O canal.What a day. I have never had more shots and more fish eat or attempt to eat in such a short period of time. Unfortunately, it was almost all frustration. In the few hours I was out there, I had well over 30 fish come at my fly. I landed one. I had three fish break me off, and I pulled the fly out of the mouth of three more fish's mouths on the hook set. The rest of the fish just annoyed me. They were spooking like crazy just as they were about to eat. I even tried my normal trick of dealing with spooky fish by changing up colors, but it didn't help. Maybe it was something to do with the kids that were running through and lobbing bobbers and heavily weighted worms at every fish they saw. I also ended up with a tiny warmouth that stole my fly from the face of a carp. I've caught plenty of varieties of sunfish in the canal before, but this is the first warmouth.

Virginia Grass Carp

One of my friends had me get out with him on Sunday to chase some grass carp, and hopefully show him how to catch them. We went out to a reservoir in the middle of no where in the western part of Virginia to hunt our quarry. I started off with the same nymph I used during my last outing in South Carolina. I managed a couple nice sized sunfish, crappie, and largemouths, but I couldn't get the grass carp to eat. After a few fish ignored the fly, I threw on my favorite beetle pattern in size 12. It didn't take long before I got a refusal. Next shot, the fish tips up, and sucks it in. I set the hook and break the tippet.

I tie back up and go at it, this time with a size 14 or 16. I see a few more fish coming along, drop the beetle right in front of it and I get another sip from a 15-20 lb grass carp. This time, the tippet holds. The fish fought exactly like a typical grass carp - an initial brief run before letting me bring it in, then taking a hard 20-30 foot run whenever you try to net it. Unfortunately, after 5 minutes, I misplayed the fish and raised my rod tip to try to help my friend get a shot at landing him. I didn't know the hook had bent ever so slightly under the weight of the fish, and the angle I gave the line was just enough to pop the hook out of the fish's mouth.

I was a little unprepared for the trip - I tried running to Orvis to get more beetles the day before, but they closed just before I got there. That was my last beetle pattern, so I bent the hook back into shape and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, that fly was gone. I got another fish to suck down the fly, but this time, the hook almost straightened completely.

We called it a day not too much longer after that and headed off to the Shenandoah to try to find some common carp. Our venture was unsuccessful though - the water was a little too high, fast, and dirty to get many places safely.

Don't forget to check out our article for more tips on fly fishing for grass carp.

Friday Afternoon Carp

I got a couple hours to hit the C&O Canal late on Friday. Conditions were so different than normal. My favorite stretch, between Lock 7 and 8, had water about 2 feet higher than normal. Most of the water became too deep to actually sight feeding fish. I only got one legitimate shot at a carp in that whole stretch. I kept walking towards Lock 6 in search of more fish. Water levels there were slightly low. I usually don't have many shots in this section, but for whatever reason, they were all over the place. I ended up pulling in three. No one walked by while I had any of the fish in the net, so I only got some basic in-the-net pictures. Unfortunately, I missed one mammoth, probably pushing 20 pounds. He was just hanging, so may not have eaten anyway, but I dropped the fly right on his nose and he wasn't a fan.

Carps Revenge

I found a couple spare hours Saturday afternoon to get back out to the canal to get one last shot at the mulberry hatch and to hopefully enact my revenge upon the fish that broke me off. The season is really done now. I only saw about four fish in the 2.5 hours I got on the water. I broke two of them off. Ugh.

Mulberry Hatch

I fished the mulberry hatch with my friend Aaron yesterday on the C&O Canal right in Georgetown. It was my first time ever fishing that stretch of the canal, and the first time ever fishing the mulberries. What an experience! Of course, the fish weren't in thick under most of the trees, despite a steady drop of berries, but I still managed some success anyway. The total to the net in a half day was 3. I broke off one big boy that would have been a great fish. Aaron also broke off a fish after he set the hook so hard, I thought he was going to backcast it into the trees behind us.

The story of the day, though, was my last fish. I found a section where I saw a bunch of big fish feeding. I was fishing near the south side of the old boat (the "barge" which was tugged by donkeys in the old days) in the end of the canal, and didn't have a good game plan for landing a fish. I was about 12 feet off the water, with a narrow stretch of about 5 feet of water between me and the boat. I literally have no idea how I landed this fish, because nearly everything possible went wrong, but I still managed to get it to the net. Once I hooked it, it went on a hell of a run and of course made a sharp left around some bridge pilings. He had no thoughts about slowing down, and I started seeing my fly line getting low. I contemplated for a minute breaking him off on purpose because I was afraid he'd sever my backing and I'd lose the whole line, but I decided to press on and hope it held. I saw almost 100 feet of backing out of the rod tip before I stopped the fish, and luckily the backing held against the bridge. Just as luckily, the fish decided to come back around the correct side of the pilings to not completely wrap me up. But it wasn't over yet. Once I cleared him of the boat, the fish decided to swim around the other side of the boat, promptly getting the leader stuck on the boat itself. At that point, I had to do some passing the rod to myself around some trees, climb up on the bridge and walk across, and somehow popped the line free. At this point, there's a good 25 people watching this spectacle. Finally, the fish was getting tired, so I walked him down to the end of the lock where there was only a foot or two to reach into the water and was able to scoop him up to the cheers of the crowd. I felt the leader, and it felt like I was running my hand over sandpaper. I still have no idea how it held up.

Sucking a mulberry off the surface

This turtle was waiting for his chance too

So close to an eat... but he refused