Aaron Anderson and I have been stalking carp with our fly rods for the past year after he caught one when we were out bass fishing in the Erie Canal near Widewaters Canal Park last June.

We’ve waded and wet-waded, stalking carp from the water.

We’ve taken out the big power boat and stood high atop the fishing platform and sight fished.

We’ve tried to get in practice at a private farm pond that is loaded with carp.

We’ve fished big water and small and we’ve tied hundreds of “carp ciller” patterns that we’ve found online.

Just last month, we saw carp swim underneath our kayaks that had to have been pushing 40 pounds!

A lot of what we tried almost worked but we didn’t have the true success we were hoping for. However, each trip led to more accumulated knowledge about where carp are located, how they spend their time and how they find their food.

We’ve discussed starting our own Carp on the Fly blog like so many others, just to share what we learned, but didn’t think that was appropriate having not landed many of these spooky fish. (Not spooky in a scary way, spooky in that they “submarine” and stealthily sink on the spot to the bottom if they get a hint you are nearby.)

FINALLY the time, fun, sun and diligent, persistant study seems to have paid off!

In the last few weeks we’ve landed 13 huge fish and lost about that many more! On the first of these outings, it seemed like we broke off a half-dozen tippets within the first 30 minutes of pushing off in our kayaks!

When we aren’t stalking trout, salmon and steelhead in Western New York or Virginia with our new Tenkara rods, we’ll be trying to figure out a way to get to some water holding those big carp and convincing them that the “Cherry Jubilee” and “Carp Candy” are worth their effort!

Stay tuned for “Aaron and Bill’s Carp on the Fly Adventures” blog!