CARP EVERYMANS BONEFISH!

[MrTwisters]

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Flyrodding for carp on Texas' Lake Meredith

By W. Chad McPhail

Special to ESPNOutdoors.com — Oct. 26, 2004

FRITCH, Texas — Even at midday in mid-July, in the sweltering heat of the west Texas Panhandle, the dinner bell rings in a carp's ears 24/7.

Fortunately for area anglers, the red-cliff bastion we call Lake Meredith is a 17-mile carp mecca. It's loaded with feisty "humpbacks," and they seem to dine on flies almost anytime of year.

Neither I nor my buddy, bass-circuit angler Darren "Madman" Mooneyham, had visited this drink in quite a spell. The bassin' hasn't been what it used to be because of drought.

But, as the Madman explains, "The carp aren't affected much by the fluctuation of the water level, the air temperature, barometric pressure or much else."

Situated some 40 miles northeast of Amarillo, Lake Meredith is commonly known as the "jewel of the Texas Panhandle."

Lake Meredith represents half of Amarillo's clean water sources, which recently topped out at 80 million gallons per day for us thirsty Texans. Before it ever crosses our lips, though, thousands of carp call it home.

It's also home to some notable fishing benchmarks:

· Flyfishing world record for largemouth bass in the 6-pound tippet class at 14.14 pounds and just more than 26 inches in length.

· State-record smallmouth bass nearly 8 pounds taken on a popping bug.

· State-record walleye that tipped the scale to almost 15 pounds.

· State-record yellow perch weighed in at just more than 1 pound.

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"By the time they reach adulthood, carp are benthic, meaning they forage on both plant and animal material, which also means they can be faked out with flies."

Carping with flies seems to have recently become all the rage. Some maintain that stalking these scaled scavengers is the Texas equivalent to bonefishing in the Everglades.

"It's basically the same technique," Mooneyham said.

Yet many anglers scoff at the notion of carp fishing.

"Since carp have been considered a nuisance for such a long time, most American anglers refuse to think of them as a sport fish," Mooneyham said.

"But if you drop one of these white flies (he was holding a natural Zonker) under their nose, tell me it doesn't feel like a sport fish when it goes the other way with it."

Too bad for those other guys. Sightfishing for carp with a fly rod is the closest many of us will ever get to Everglade fishing from a flat-bottom boat for a game fish that you can actually see before you cast.

Anyone who has ever tracked a trophy buck or hunted wild boars knows the adrenaline rush of sightfishing — sweat dripping, body shaking, wide eyes, dry mouth.

"It's more like hunting than angling," Mooneyham said.

"The heat won't push the carp down like the bass," he pointed out. "When it's hot and the bass descend, it seems the rig to have at Meredith is a fly rod and a boxful of Zonkers, which is a very realistic shad imitation."

He grabbed a dead shad minnow from the water and placed the Zonker next to it. They were twins.

Even on the hottest summer days, carp choose to cruise the tepid surface and take whatever is available on top. Tiny shad cadavers litter Meredith like pieces of a broken mirror.

We noticed a few carp sucking the dead shad off the top, so matching that meal made the Zonker our pattern of choice.

Even with down-turned mouths, carp will skim the film for any freebies they can get. This pattern fools them.

A size No. 6 natural Zonker stripped slowly about two feet in front of their cartoonish faces seems to perform best. Douse your fly with a crawfish scent and you'll get that extra hard slam we all dream about.

And in a lake the size of Meredith, heavy carp are never in short supply.

"In the shallows, in the coves, right out in the middle — carp are everywhere here," Mooneyham said. "They'll move to wherever food is. And in a lake this big, there's a lot to eat."

We had it out with several carp in the deepest parts of the lake. We kept our eyes peeled for the surface runners. When we'd spot one, we zeroed on in him with the trolling motor, flicked the fly a yard or so in front of his nose, then stripped it slowly. We zonked 'em every time.

Then we tag-teamed a few more from around the banks of Rattlesnake Island, which juts from the middle of Meredith like a flat-topped volcano.

Mooneyham and I also fooled numerous takers in a brushy cove, which is where we also mistook a Frankenstein-size bass for a humpback. (He mistook our pattern for a wounded shad, and nailed it harder than any of the carp. We weren't too upset over that.)

Unfortunately, Meredith's marina doesn't cater to flyfishers, at least not yet.

"Since there aren't any streams around here," Mooneyham mentioned, "most Panhandle anglers don't use fly rods, even though they're practical for still waters."

There are no guides for Lake Meredith at the moment, either.

"The lake has seen some hard times in the last few years due to the drought. The few guides that were around either gave it up or went elsewhere," Mooneyham said.

So flyanglers are on there own … for the lack of fly guides. But that's not a huge issue, since sight-fishing for carp at Lake Meredith isn't for everyone, according to Mooneyham.

We agreed on several other things. If you're weak at heart, if you don't like to fight at all, if carp aren't sporty enough for you or if you'd rather stick to dipping guppies from a fishbowl, Lake Meredith might be your Kryptonite.

On the other fin, if tossing bright reflective flies to huge undulating squabblers right on the surface sounds like your poison, Lake Meredith is a utopia.

Indeed, don't underestimate a Panhandle carping trip. They're awesome fighters, abundant as tumbleweeds and they'll bite nearly every time.

Come on down; the dinner bell is a-ringin'.

W. Chad McPhail is a freelance writer in Amarillo, Texas who concentrates on flyfishing, trout fishing and hunting throughout the Southwest.