Sneak into Centenial Park just after dusk.

Lionel,
I caught a fish around 10kg on 5lb tippet on a 5# once. Nearly bored me to death!
I stick to 9lb flourocarbon now and get up the bastards
Lowy

Smaller (5kg) model bowled over on a 7#

Lionel,
If you want big numbers of big fish you re best making the trip up to Keepit or Splitrock near Tamworth. I generally chase them in the creeks around Bingara, Manilla etc. They make a good distraction on sunny winter days when all the natives have got lock-jaw.
Lowy

Lionel,

We usually fish Lake Liddell up near Singleton. Some honker carp in there mate. It's a bit of a drive but a nice spot and closer that Tamworth


There are a few spots up around Maitland as well but that doesn't really answer your Sydney question.

Guys, some great information coming through here. This website is providing real quality for the flyfishers in this region.

Growing up as a youngster in South Africa I spent countless hours fly- and lure fishing for carp - even though I had a self-concept of being a troutie, the reality was that I only got to trout waters about one weekend a month, but large carp were abundant in my home waters and within range of many an afternoon session after school, sometimes even before school so I guess I was actually a carpie. Since I came to Sydney 14 years ago I have not found convenient waters holding carp suited to fly-fishing and the disdain that people have for the species here means that they tend not to be firmly on anyone's radar. But the fact remains that they can be great fun and a very interesting fly-quarry.

Justin, on the Nepean where you have seen / caught the Carp can you stalk and sight fish them? And do you need to be in a boat to access the good water?

Lionel, if you go there please let us know what you see / catch. I'm particularly interested in quiet shallow areas where carp can be seen tailing - actually rooting the bottom - and where the water has enough clarity outside their mud puffing for them to see a fly. Surface slurpers in scum-lines are also of interest.

David I've had Lake Liddell on my todo list for ages. Some questions if I may: Does it fish okay for carp through winter? The pic above has a boat peaking into it - can you access the right sort of water / flats on foot? Can you point me to any particular area of the Lake - I'll be turning up at the front gate like a tourist with no idea where to start. I don't feel like towing my boat there but I do have a float boat - do you think it would be useful there?

Does anyone have information on Lake Keepit they would like to share.

I've done a few sessions at Manly dam looking for carp - they are certainly there but not in the great numbers people suggest. The shallows of the dam tend to be rocky shelves, which they don't really like, and up the back it's quite choked with weeds except for the deep channels through the weeds. Up the back I spotted only 3 fish in about 2 hours of polaroiding, one sun basking (impossible) right in the weeds and two cruising out of range in the channels. The next time some nice weather coincides with my free time will see me up there in my float-boat waiting on the edge of the channel for those big cruisers. On one trip I found 2 small carp in a little side-creek near the last car park but they were aware of me before I saw them. Several fish work the duck feeding zone - but the water is pretty turbid there from all the fish activity and duck poop - and back casts with plenty of kids everywhere doesn't make a good mix.

I've been given a few tips on spots in the Shoalhaven river (by non-flyfishers) about 70km inland from Nowra and apparently there are plenty of big carp to be seen cruising pools in very clear water- except after a downpour in which case they say flash flooding is common and it becomes dangerous and unfishable. I'm going to check it out because I go down that way a few times a month for work - I'll certainly post everything I learn up here.

Lowy, if I don't come right on the Shoalhaven I'll have to make plans to check out your rivers.

On a recent holiday back to South Africa I got re-aquainted with my old carp habit - attached pic is of happy me and mini-me trying to stand upright against a howling wind doing it's best to knock us over - the fly was a black woolly bugger of course.

Thanks all
Cheers
William