Grass Carp on fly

[FishnDave]

57 minutes ago, moguy1973 said:

My in-laws have a couple of them in their pond that would go over 40" I'd bet.  Massive fish.  Can see their dorsal fin cruising the surface.  Look like little sharks out there.

That would be exciting!  I've seen them do that...darn things...I could never get them to eat when they were doing that.  In fact....I noticed something in one pond.  The grass carp there seemed to act like GEESE.  You know how a bunch of geese will be feeding, and there will be one or two "sentries" that will stand guard?  I watched a big grass carp doing what you described...it would slowly cruise back and forth with its fins out of the water.  It had my attention...I would keep casting to it.  Eventually I noticed quite a few other grass carp were feeding along the the submerged weeds and beneath the floating mats of algae in front of me.  I'm certain that one out in the middle was a sentry, acting as a decoy!! 

[JUNGLE JIM 1]

Two years ago I had one take a Whopper plopper while fishing Big River just at daybreak. It was super strong, especially in the current and I had to follow it downstream a ways before finally landing it after about 15 minutes. Remember thinking that's a weird looking carp. Ran back to get my gear bag to get a picture and on the way back I watched it flop a couple times and back in the water it went. Probably was in the 20 lb. range. After seeing these pictures of grass carp I know that's what it was, the one and only grass carp I've ever caught.

[BilletHead]

                     Meat is snow white and very tasty. 

[FishnDave]

4 hours ago, JUNGLE JIM 1 said:

Two years ago I had one take a Whopper plopper while fishing Big River just at daybreak. It was super strong, especially in the current and I had to follow it downstream a ways before finally landing it after about 15 minutes. Remember thinking that's a weird looking carp. Ran back to get my gear bag to get a picture and on the way back I watched it flop a couple times and back in the water it went. Probably was in the 20 lb. range. After seeing these pictures of grass carp I know that's what it was, the one and only grass carp I've ever caught.

Crazy story!  I wish they were always that aggressive!

Here's the first one I ever caught, 36", @ 25 lbs:

And a really thick one:

Heck, I've caught so few, at this point I might as well show the rest:

And here's what seems to happen every time you get them close to being landed...they take off like a rocket!: