Consolation fish

I have my eye on some fish i've seen just recently in a small river, these are wild carp, maybe not in the true sense of the word but wild enough that they do not know what bait it. I would however not be using bait to catch them which would make things more difficult. I want to catch them on the fly, ive caught carp before on both a natural daddy fly and a bread fly and got a much more satisfying feeling from catching the one on an imitation of something natural. Don't get me wrong id not turn my nose up at catching carp on dog biscuit flies or again bread flies but your always left with the feeling that you might have well have just used the bait itself. Anyway i tested these wild fish out with bread to see if i could get them feeding on the surface but they were not interested, probably never seen the stuff before.
This was going to be difficult tempting them with a natural pattern, ive seen them doing it allot in the warmer water of the states but would the same work well over here?

Today i shot out after work to dedicate a couple of hours to trying to get one of these carp, I had tied some rough damsel patterns up last night, nothing fancy but they looked great in the water and i was'nt really expecting them to work.

 

I reached the river and set off for the area i usually see the carp cruising about, no sooner had i started walking and i spooked a heron which must have flown over a basking pike as the water erupted. I had my frogging gear in the car so went back for that before setting off again for the carp with the fly rod, i thought id bag a few pike first. I cast into the area and sure enough a decent fish followed but would'nt take, i think it must have been slightly spooked still from the heron.

I hate carrying more gear than i need but i thought if i brought my frogging gear at least if the carp were not there i could keep trying for the pike. I had a few more casts and bagged a jack.

 

On my way to the carp i spotted what i thought was another pike but on closer inspection it was two big chub, one of which was a lunker. These are the first chub ive seen in the this river so in a panick i crept closer staying lower amongst the vegetation. It was awkward but i managed to cast a damsel fly at them and luckily i landed it infront of the biggest, it moved towards it and i saw the white of its mouth as it opened, not sure what happened but i lifted thinking i was going to hook up but it didnt and the fish spooked, DAMMIT!

I carried on again cursing all the while at missing the chub, until i finally spotted a cruising carp, it was going at a reasonable speed so it was difficult to get the damsel enough infront of it, my timing was all wrong, probably too close or the fish just not interested but it didnt show any interest at all. then another one came along travelling a little slower and i got my cast just right right, it moved to the side to intercept my damsel and i held my breath.... it opened its mouth to take the fly... im actually gunna get one here i thought... BUT.. as it opened its mouth to hoover the fly in the fly hit some weed and didnt go into the carps mouth, DAMMIT! another chance missed and i was so close to getting a carp on a retrieved nymph which is what im dreaming about at the minute. Sadly no more carp were spotted or at least i thought i had but it turned out to be a small pod of BIG bream. The beauty of fly fishing is that you can target just about anything you spot so again out went the damsel, line tightened and i was in! This was a proper slab and a new PB fly caught bream, what a consolation for missing the chub and carp, if i'd have hooked them it would have been a great session!

 

 

It was nearly time to walk back now and i had my sights on the decent pike i had seen earlier, it will have been rested now so hoped id get a shot at it. On the way back i found a dead pikes head, quite surprising how big the teeth are!

 

To cut a long story short, i went back for the pike and on the first cast into the same area it nailed it! Another consolation fish, sadly i still went home with the chub and carp on my mind but i will be back!