Kevin Morlock

Carp Fly

With the exception of Monday the weather has been too wintry for enjoyable fishing, this morning we had 8 degrees.  With no interest in fighting the ice out of my rod guides I’ve been tying carp flies.  I’m actually submitting some of my carp patterns to one of the catalogs to see if they want to pick it up for commercial distribution.  A couple of the patterns are a bit complex, no problem knocking-off imperfect flies for my own use but a bit different when you need three perfect clones of each pattern/color.  At the end of this project I found the point where I was tying perfect flies pretty efficiently.

To tie a perfect fly you have to make every step count and most importantly use perfect materials.  Out of years of habit, I’m just not selective enough with my materials and I found that choosing perfect materials was my key to tying perfect flies.

The pile of not perfect carp flies.  The good news is that the fish this summer will like them just fine.

I have a few of the carp patterns and recipes on our Fly Index Page.

Walt Grau, of The Spey Rod Outfitters and Guide Service and I fished the lower Pere Marquette River on Monday, just before the winter storm hit.  The fishing was good and there was a definite pattern going on.  I would have loved to get down there again, but everything will be different know.  There is a good chance the lower PM River, from Indian Bridge down, might be froze-up until spring.

While I hate to lose thirty miles of great river, freeze-up creates a refuge for the fish.  An area where they can hang-out and not be molested by anglers and most importantly not be harvested.

One of the steelhead from Monday.

I was down to Holt, Michigan this Saturday for the Great Lakes Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers — Invitational Fly Tying Expo.  This year marked the 10th year of the event and was my third expo — I was at the 1st, 9th and 10th.  Joan, Aaliyah and I drove down with Walt Grau (Spey Rod Outfitter and Guide Service) and meet up with our friend Ian Anderson from FlyMasters of Indianapolis.  They held the event at a new location this year, the Holt High School and I thought that it was a great location.  I tied my Morlock’s 4 Eyes pattern and still have trouble tying and talking at the same time… so I only tied about a dozen.

Walt tied one of his old steelhead flies — Grau’s Wiggle Hex

Ian tied a new carp fly of his, the "Hammerhead".  Ian came-up with the fly while sitting around the beach house on Beaver Island this summer tying flies and drinking beer one evening.  It ended up being a great carp fly when they were really on the bite.

Announcement post on the main Indigo site…