How to go Carp Fishing in Tokyo
Most of you don’t know me so let me fill you in. I’m originally from Scotland and grew up fishing the lochs and rivers of the central belt. I started with trout and salmon and began tying my own flies when I was twelve particularly traditional Scottish and Irish wet flies, but also streamers and mini lures for stocked fish too. I was lucky to grow up in Ayrshire, not far from Davie Mcphail, who was always helpful when it came to teaching techniques or critiquing flies. I eventually started tying commercially to earn money during university, and in the period after I started, it got a bit out of hand with me struggling to complete orders and shipping them round the world, but I’m glad I did it!
I fished twice for Scotland in youth internationals and was British Youth Champion in 2001. Strangely, competitive fishing really turned me off, and after that I started targeting pike, which continued until I moved to Japan 6 years ago and that’s when things got interesting...
The first thing I noticed about Tokyo was the amount of carp-filled waterways all around. At the time, I’d never heard of anyone catching carp on fly but figured they must be catchable... it took me ages to get my first. There was nobody to help me and almost nothing about it online, actually, and I was on the edge of giving up when I managed to get a small carp to eat a marabou charlie.
Over the next couple of years carp started to grow in popularity, especially thanks to McTage at Flycarpin and John Montana to name just two influencers... So I started my first blog, CarpflyJapan to add to the pool of knowledge.
One of the main drivers for me was that most of the info that I could find treated a 1-3 carp day like it was a fantastic day. But by that time, I was regularly catching 10+ fish in a morning- so I thought I’d share some info and carp-specific flies.
As time went on, I decided to change the blog to the current iteration 'flickingfeathers’ to cover more than carp. I do a fair bit of SWFF too, and wanted to include that although most of my fishing is still for carp and barbel.
Living in the Tokyo suburbs means I have access to all kinds of different water with carp in it I’ve been able to come to grips with carp and their wide range of behavioral patterns and by extension, a range of flies and fishing strategies. I’m now confident that I can catch carp anywhere from big sterile lakes with predatory carp to muddy bottomed rich ponds to freestone rivers and silted streams, and you can too.It’s not that hard really, if you slow down and think.
The first thing to do is forget trout.Carp are smarter and spookier than any trout I’ve ever even heard about carp behave very differently. After you slow it down, you should go and buy Kirk Deeter’s guide to fly fishing for carp, and read Rod Hamilton’s DIY bonefishing especially the part about walking speed and seeing fish, as well as any other information you can find on fly fishing for carp.
Basically the first carp is the hardest, and they will get easier the more you grow to understand them... back when I started there wasn’t much information around, and it took me a long time to get my first but even blank days are part of the learning curve.
While carp behavior varies a lot depending on the type of water they’re in, I think there are some guiding principles that can be applied to most waters regardless of the forage and behavior.
Get some mad ninja skills! A lot of people worry about flies and lines and leader set ups way more than this, but for me it’s the clear single most important factor in carp fishing. These fish can hear you and in shallow water they are wary. Learn to creep and get close unseen and unheard. 90 percent of the guys I take out to get their first carp struggle most with this. They spook fish before they even get a chance to put a fly in front of them. A spooked carp WILL NOT eat.
Learn to read the fish that are worth casting to and don’t waste your time on negative fish. There are tons of stuff already written about this but a lot of guys I see just don’t get it and try to cast at anything. Often you run the risk of spooking players by casting at a negative fish nearby. Stop and watch. Pick out the fish that are telling you they’ll eat. Probably the best way to learn this is with someone to show you, but if you can’t do that read about it and try to apply it on the river. It’ll come surprisingly quickly if you work at it. Don’t be afraid to leave fish and try to find more. With carp the old adage doesn’t hold true; you’re not going to beat a carp into submission, so go find a happy carp that will eat your fly.
Don’t get too hung up on fly patterns, try to roughly match the forage where you are, but don’t treat it as the be-all-and-end-all my first couple of years I fished almost nothing but Backstabbers and Crazy Charlies in a range of sizes and colors to suit the venue. Of course now I have a wider selection, but as with all fishing, doing the right thing with the "wrong" fly will catch you more fish than the other way round. Also don’t be too conservative in color choice, carp love bright colors and a magenta chartreuse glo-bug is a great gateway pattern for budding carpers.
Presentation is paramount. This ties in with the last point: most rejections are your fault. Sorry but it’s true. Your fly was too far away, landed too close to the fish, wasn’t drifting correctly or some other factor. Learn to drag and drop, dapp, and cast weighted flies so they land softly. Know the sink rate of your fly so you know how far to drop it in the current so it’ll land in the fish’s window.
Wait. If a fish doesn’t see your fly or doesn’t eat but seems to still be happy, leave it five minutes before you try again, let it settle and you’ll have more chance of getting it on a second shot than if you try straight away.
Cheers,
Martyn