“They give me Mud Pig fever
Mud Pig fever
I got a Mud Pig fever
The Mud Pig fever”
Back in July when the rivers were too low, and water temps too high, fishing options were rather limited so when Stu suggested I join him for some carp fly fishing I decided to give it a go. The chosen venue was the same North Yorkshire commercial fishing venue I’d been family fishing back in May and it’s a pretty lovely place to wet a line on a glorious high summer day. I had the basics already with my 10 weight pike fly rod (Airflo Bluetooth Nano) and similar weight line with a relatively short 15lb leader on a reel with a decent drag. What I didn’t have was the carp pellet flies or a bag of dog biscuits 😂 but luckily Stu came equipped.
We had a go in the smaller lake but not much was happening so moved to the larger lake behind us which was busy with carp anglers plotted up in their chairs with 2 rods out, bite alarms, the works. The premise, it turns out, is pretty simple. Start feeding up your swim with small amounts of floating dog biscuits, wait for a carp to come in and start gulping them down then chuck out your deer hair carp fly and drop it as near as possible to the feeding fish. It’s actually thrilling stuff! The kind of day you should be doing this seems to be a real dog day afternoon when it’s almost too hot, as this is when the carp are at the surface and you can see them cruising about. Watching one swim up to your fly is pretty exhilerating and you start to learn which ‘gulp’ is the real deal. Mostly.
Stu got off to a good start with a hard fighting carp
I had a few half hearted swirls before getting a solid take which translated into a pretty much unstoppable run before the fish finally spat the hook. The fight was unreal despite being on a powerful fly rod. Meanwhile Stu managed to hook into another which I duly netted for him seeing as I wasn’t catching any bastard fish myself.
I hooked one more fish which once again went off like a shit off a shovel and once again spat the hook and then had no further action after which I had to pack up and go do my pre-planned mountain bike ride out on the N Y Moors but I have been left with an urge to do this again and hopefully land one next time! My fishing repertoire is expanding at a rapid rate of knots at the moment as both weather and familial committments force a broadening of horizons! Meanwhile my bank balance is shrinking at a reciprocal rate as exampled by buying a small box of carp flies for about £30!
