Carp Behavior Explanation

This post is in response to a question from Brian who asked me to explain the difference between clooping, bubbling, and tailing/rooting Carp in his comment in this blog post.  Brian, the answer was way too long for the comment character limit so I put it here in a new post.  

Very simply stated a tailing Carp is looking down.  A clooping Carp is looking up. 

A tailing Carp is feeding on the bottom.   The behavior of rooting is more specific than simply tailing.  When I say rooting I am picturing a Carp that is tailing in the mud.  That fish can literally have all of its body concealed by the cloud of silt that comes up from the mudding or rooting behavior.  A rooting Carp is tailing but I distinguish the behavior largely because of strategy for catching a rooting Carp versus one that is tailing on a hard dirt bottom, on rocks, or in weeds.

When I use the word “bubbling” I mean a Carp that is tailing or shopping very slowly and stopping regularly.  He definitely has his nose down.  I distinguish bubbling from tailing because I cannot actually see a “bubbler”.  I just see the bubbles that his activity creates but not the fish.  Not being able to see the fish is a huge difference to me.   Through the years I have had some very good success catching tailing fish but I have had little to no success catching bubblers.   I had some days on the Snake River where I was able to catch a few bubblers but again my success has been very limited.  Honestly, I largely ignore these fish.  As a result of the exchange in this post I am going to take bubbling fish a good deal more seriously in 2012 and attempt to catch them using an indicator.  That said, I would sure laugh at myself if I don’t see another bubbler for two years.   I may owe bubbling fish an apology for ignoring them.  I sure hope I do. 

I’m not sure when or where I first heard the term clooping.  I believe it was from John Jennings, a lifetime UK Carp angler.  When he and I started communicating about 6 years ago he sent me some VHS videos and DVD’s that showed Euro-Carping methods.  (Not fly fishing)  I know that there was at least passing reference to clooping Carp in the videos and I know John talked to me about the behavior.  From whatever that first introduction was for me, at the time I understood a clooping Carp to be feeding on the surface. 

For the first year that I Carp fished I believe I saw one fish, possibly two, take a bug off the surface. By the time I switched to a dry fly and cast it out, that Carp had aged so much he was no longer able to see the darn bug. 

In those early years I tried casting dry flies to sunbathing Carp.  It was education by trial and error for me.  By the way casting dry flies to sunbathers is a total joke. 

Through the years I have observed three surface behaviors from Carp.  I am not counting sunbathing on the surface as one of those behaviors.  I mean three behaviors where the Carp is looking up.  I don’t know if the Carp are always feeding when I see these behaviors.  At this point I don’t think they are but I could be wrong.  I also don’t know if anglers from the UK would call all of these behaviors clooping. 

The first behavior is when I see Carp rising and taking bugs off the surface of the water.  I understand that to be the classic example of clooping.  I went to Montana to fish the Missouri River in 2010 specifically to catch some Carp on dry flies.  I made a blog post about it and posted a YouTube video.

The second behavior I see where Carp are on the surface is when they have their mouths and eyes out of the water and are just sitting there.  I am honestly not sure what the heck these fish are doing.  Another Carp angler said to me once that he thought they might actually be getting a small amount of oxygen out of the air.  I have no idea if that is possible.  I don’t see these fish feeding.  They may be gathering very small insects that I don’t see but at least a few times I have observed this behavior I am virtually sure they were not.  It appeared to me that they had come to the surface just to look.  It is like they are “explorers” seeing what there is beyond the edge of the world.  They look out, see a loud, dry, scary place, and head for home.  They tell their friends that that the place outside the world is a interesting place to visit but no fish would want to live there.  Maybe these fish are sunbathing but they are looking up so I distinguish the behavior.  Also, I have caught a few of these fish on a cast but find it very difficult to catch a sunbather on a cast.  I do much better with sunbathers dropping or pitching the fly.  Because of this, again, I distinguish the behavior. 

I was in my second year of Carp fishing before I actually heard the noise that is said to be what clooping Carp do.  Humor me here please.  If you have never heard the noise that Carp make when they are on the surface, and you would like to hear it now, follow these directions.


1.  Say the letter “L” and when you are finished keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
2.  With your tongue on the roof of your mouth the entire time say the word “cloop”.
3.  Tongue still in place, say the word “cloop” slowly but inhale while you do it instead of exhaling. 

If you followed these directions you just heard the sound clooping Carp are said to make.  I have to say though that I have seen Carp feeding on the surface and not making this sound at all.  That first time I actually heard and saw Carp making the sound there were so many of them doing it I thought it was some small birds I had never seen.  It took me awhile to realize that all the noise was being made by Carp.  There were easily 40 or 50 of them doing this at the same time.  It was eerie.  I could not see any bugs on the surface of the water but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.  I assume these fish were feeding but I was never really sure.  I cast unweighted Hares Ears to them and got a few to take.

There are two lakes that I have fished where I have observed most of the sucking sound and the “explorer” behavior.  One day there were four explorers all pointing in towards each other like some sort of synchronized swimming.   I made a very lucky cast right in the middle of the formation.  One of them picked up the fly.  I don’t know if he ate it intentionally or if it sort of fell in his mouth.  Either way, I would say both the Carp and I were surprised.  He was nice enough to pose for a picture when it was finished. 

So what is a clooping Carp?  I have to say I’m still learning.  I would say a Carp that is feeding on the surface would fit most people’s definition of clooping.  I would say that sometimes Carp feeding on the surface make the sucking sound and sometimes they don’t.  I would say that sometimes the fish making the sound are feeding and sometimes they aren’t.  I also think that some fish are explorers and they are just looking out at the edge of the world. 

Today, I worked some, I tied a few flies, I wrote this response, and I dreamed of warm days where I was casting to fat Carp...