Asp

[Zoran Marinkovic]

thanks Jeroen , you must be right , there is lots of misinformation on internet these days
in my country they call it "Asian Asp ??"

[Jeroen]

That is another species Zoran. The Asian asp is very similar to 'our' asp. Latin name is Aspius vorax.

Cheers,
Jeroen

[skeg]

Mangar is my "next must to catch"-species...the far rivers of Turkey are quite a destination for an expedition...

[Harps]

Is it possible to stick an outboard on the back of them?

Cheers Paul

You can run a jet on the back some driftboats (special made). They are a little tougher to row, but great for getting to some of those out of reach places.

I'm of mixed opinion about them- I hate the drone of motors on a quiet morning river and they can damage spawning areas (there is a study form New Zealand that shows trout eggs being destroyed in redds).
Plus when you are standing in a creek and a boat comes flying upstream at you at 40 mph you tend to soil your shorts (if you survive the diving out of the way).
But... I did love how we could access all sorts of fishing spots here locally with our work jetboats- and it makes you look cool.
http://adiposeboatworks.com/wordpress/power-boats/
http://hydeoutdoors.com/boat/models/pow ... fter.shtml

Sorry... back to Asps. I'm curious about what the proper way to age them is... scales, fin clips, odoliths, operculum... each technique has pros and cons and is more suitable to various types of fish. These guys worked with Ferox trout and made some cool discoveries about aging their scales (browns that live over 50 years!)

[Jeroen]

There's a Dutch biologist who did research on asp vision (they have the best eye-sight of any predatory fish in The Netherlands) and I think age determination. I'll see what I can find.
Count me in Skeg. The 'garden of Eden' (Euphrate/Tigris-basin) must be one of the most spectacular, yet undiscovered, fresh water fly fishing areas in the world.

Cheers,
Jeroen

[skeg]

...
Count me in Skeg. The 'garden of Eden' (Euphrate/Tigris-basin) must be one of the most spectacular, yet undiscovered, fresh water fly fishing areas in the world.

Cheers,
Jeroen

Let's look after. I was on the edge to seriously organize something exploratory last year on that area...
Soon or later I will.

[Karel N]

Let me reopen this topic since I don't want to create a new thread for the same.
I'd like to learn to catch asp on fly. Could you please give me a piece of advice about the tactics?

1) what rod (currently I use 9ft 6wt)
2) floating vs sinking lines (what depth in which season)
3) what leader (length, thickness; is fluorocarbon essential or a standard mono is OK)
4) what flies and how many
5) presentation (how far away from the splash, how quick we need to be)
6) how to recognize big asp from small ones based on the splash -> size of the fly
7) retrieve

I know, a lot of questions. I fish for asp from a bank on the river Elbe. I used white Gurgler (size 6), different white streamers (size 6), Silver March Brown (size 12) but I have had no eat so far. I can see a typical splash quite often during evening. It is really frustrating that they are completely ignoring me :-)

[Paul Arden]

There are some really excellent FPs from Bernd on this, Karel. Finding them is another matter. The new site will make this easier and the search function will be working again.

My answers as someone who is certainly not an expert in Asp but has spend quite some time fishing for them in Hungary.

1) 9’ #6 is fine
2) mostly floating line for me. In fact I’ve only caught them on floating lines. But I’m sure sinking lines will work too. An intermediate could certainly be handy.
3) I never use fluoro. 8lb mono is fine. The diameter of mono is more related to the size of the flies than anything else.
4) Gurgler white, white zonker, bunny cat. But you might want to get more specific with imitating the baitfish if that’s not working.
5) they seem to hang around for a little bit and I’ve caught them considerably after the splash. The way I watch them feed is they hang around, or disappear. The bait settle and then they chase the bait up to the surface. Smash smash. Then they go back to chilling out. It’s about fishing where the bait are hanging out.
6) big asp are louder!
7) some suggest very fast. But I think you need to vary it. Usually I start slow, using the current and then speed up. You want to give the flies time to sink (if not a gurgler). Fish the seams.

I’ve often used two flies. A gurgler and a cat’s whisker. I really like the gurgler because it’s visual.

How big are your asp?

Cheers, Paul

[Karel N]

Hi Paul,
Thank you for the tips. I think this fish is going to be a real challenge. So far I've tried all flies shown in the picture below and there was no single eat. However, asp were happily feeding while ignoring them

I need to change either presentation, retrieve or flies. From splash perspective I think there are both the small ones near banks and the big ones a bit further in the river but still in a manageable casting distance.
I have just found a list of FPs from Bernd in https://www.first-cast.de/sexyloops-flycasting.html so I have plenty of material to study

[Paul Arden]

Hmmm. They’re not playing the game! Can you see what they are eating?

Cheers, Paul