Chapter 58 Day 97 - Trout Season

Tying The Carpolo Charlie Carp Fly

With no chance of getting to the water this weekend, the best was made of time by tying some carp patterns for the upcoming season. 

Gregg in Idaho and I have been exchanging a lot of information regarding carp by fly fishing here of late and I'm enjoying every single minute of the dispatches from Gregg. 

He recently sent me a recipe for his variation of the carp fly known as the Mud Bugger and some of these dandies are coming to my fly tying table soon.  In exchange, I'm making this post detailing how to tie the Carpolo Charlie carp fly so Gregg will have an understanding of how to tie this particular pattern.

The Carpolo Charlie carp fly is actually an easy tie.  You will basically go through the same motions you would tying a Clouser pattern.  Of course the materials are quite different. 

Color schemes are left up to the tier's imagination, but I've found that olive is usually a good bet for one of the two colors.  Best producing color schemes have been olive/orange, olive/yellow, olive/black and olive/brown. 

It doesn't seem to matter which color you tie in that will serve as the bottom portion of the fly.  In this regard the bottom portion is the material you'll tie in first (or on top of the hook shank) since this fly is counter-weighted and the hook-point will ride up. 

Here is how to tie a size 10 olive and orange Carpolo Charlie.

You will need:

Size 10 streamer hook
1/8 (Medium) black bead chain eye
Orange 6/0 thread
2 strands of round rubber legging (pumpkinseed colored)
Root Beer Krystal Flash
Orange Marabou
Olive (blood quill) Marabou. 

We start by running our thread wraps down the hook shank and then tying the bead chain in on top of the hook shank about three-fourths way toward the eye of the hook.

With thread directly behind the bead chain eyes take two strands of rubber legging and cinch down and wrap backwards toward bend of hook.

Now take three strands of root beer colored Krystal flash, double the strands around the thread and tie in at hook bend.  Advance thread forward to a point directly in front of bead chain eyes.  Wrap flash up to the thread and tie flash down with thread wraps bending excess flash backwards as you would a flash wing.





Make sure thread wraps are in front of bead chain eyes and tie in the orange marabou using a figure eight wrap with two soft wraps around the material in back of the bead chain eyes.  End thread wraps in front of bead chain eyes. 

Rotate vise and tie in clump of olive marabou with thread wraps only at front of the bead chain eyes.

Build thread head and whip finish using a fail-safe whip finish and a final whip finish.  I tend not to use any head cement or clear nail polish out of possibility of it leaving a scent the carp will detect.

Trim the length of the legs to your liking.  Experience has shown, in the water we fish for carp, that the length of the legs is best when trimmed to a length of 3/4's past the bend of the hook.  However, experiment with different lengths according to the water you fish.