The Orvis Beginner's Guide to Carp Flies: 101 Patterns & How and When to Use Them

I really like how Mr. Fraiser breaks down carp flies into categories based on carps' feeding habits, habitat type, and available food items. The descriptions contained in this book helped me understand what a carp is doing when it exhibits certain behaviors in certain habitats.I do, however, think that the title "beginner's guide to carp flies" is somewhat misleading because it implies that the book, at least, will have specifics on how to put together the fly patterns contained therein. This book does not do that. It does contain ingredients lists. But it contains neither notes on how to put those flies together, nor information on how to design and create your own flies, an activity that I believe most carpers would acknowledge is integral to maximizing a carper's ability to put their local fish in the bag. I would recommend purchasing Jay Zimmerman's book for that kind of information.Because of the valuable information on feeding habits, habitat type, available food items, and flies associated with the various kinds of these criteria that this book contains, I would highly recommend purchasing The Orvis Beginner's Guide to Carp Flies.

Interesting

In North America, even within the boundaries of major cities, most carp live in a state of nature. If they were trout, bass, or pike, in the same state, `they would be easily caught by simply throwing an attractor fly in their direction. Carp are somewhat different, even undisturbed populations are not easy to catch, unless by blind luck you do about 6 things right at the same timeThis book is built around the puzzle of catching carp, and is one of the best values in a fly fishing book ever brought to market. It is really a how-to catch carp book, but it starts from the flies, not a lengthy and difficult to follow discussion of everything else. The book is divided into sections for the basic food forms carp feed on. It describes the habitat those foods are found in; what carp behaviour indicates a feeding fish; whether they are feeding on the prey you assume; how to present that type of fly; and then what flies to tie/buy or use.To use the book consider your fishing area. Shallow flat. What are the fish finding there? Might be crayfish or clams, say. Go to those sections and you should be quickly able to figure out whether the muddy or rocky bottoms favour one or the other species. Go to the relevant section and review the fish behaviour, if the clues add up, study the fishing techniques and select some flies and you have at least a starting point. There are tips on how to find solve problems outside of the scope of the book.The book has 101 pattern recipes with excellent descriptions. The book could not be as concise or as reasonably priced had it included more detailed pattern information. There are however a few problems with this format.:1) The field of carp flies is growing and experimental. Most of the flies are very simple, save a few classic dries. The new flies, however, often use new approaches and tricks that make a big difference to otherwise simple looking flies. One would be hard put to be sure in every case that one had tied these flies as intended, just from a picture. However, there is so much information on the internet that even if one needed such help, it is often found on Youtube or the web. What the book does so well is provide a comprehensive listing; and a good photo; a list of materials.2) The other problem is that the descriptions include few common materials. Again, the web may provide info on substitutions. On the positive, these are presumably the real recipes. But not even a dozen Orvis stores probably stock all these materials.There is another carp fly book out this spring and it has fewer patterns, but step by step descriptions of the tying process that may be helpful to some.This book will be beneficial to non-tiers because of the excellent fishing instructions, and catalog of flies.Additional books are the recently released Best Carp Flies, Carp on the Fly; and the Clouser fly tying book.Tremendous value at the price of some magazines.

Dan does a great job of explaining how to evaluate different carp behavior which helps the angler determine what flies to use and how to approach the fish. The book is divided into easy to follow sections based on the type of forage you are trying to imitate. I appreciate how Dan not only provides recipes for 101 carp flies he explains how to present the flies to fish. Presentation is critical to the carp angler’s success.I’m entering my 12th season of fly fishing for carp. Back when I started I was hungry to learn; I organized and participated in carp fly swaps. There was such a wide range of “made up stuff” that guys exchanged. Many of those early swap flies had never caught a carp and some of them had never even been in the water. Dan’s book has 101 flies that have all caught carp. These are proven patterns; they won’t all work where a person lives but some of them will definitely work for you. This book will be a collector's item someday. Thanks for a job well done, Dan!

I was expecting 101 designs with instructions on how to tie them, what I got was a book with 101 pictures and absolutely no information on how to put the designs into practice, ok you get a list of materials used but its akin to buying a book on baking cakes that lists ingredients and shows some fancy end product but without the "bones" of the recipe to put it together as it was intended, maybe I was asking too much of it? .... Having said that locating carp and how to fly fish for them is covered in an excellent well thought out way. I come from a course fishing and specimen background and some of what is written rings very true and may well be what the fly fisherman would need to know but not until they had decided to fish for carp on the fly. For those targeting carp on the fly then it is probably going to be more of a read to them.