Oh yes! I have. I used to fish the Barge (Erie) Canal in NY for carp with a flyrod. If fished several types of activity:
Stalking the banks watching for rooting carp. I could see the rings and boils from a distance, stalk up, and place the fly in front of them, then twitch it. They were often so preoccupied, the movement was important, and not all fish would respond. But if they saw the fly, and I moved it just so (a twitch –as they won’t chase), I could catch em. These were usually medium to large carp for this water (3 to 6lbs). I used bulky buggy looking flies (think wooly worm-esque) with parts that wiggle or twitch like hen hackle, marabou, or rabbit fur.
Mayfly emergences: The canal had good summer burrowing mayfly emergences and I walked the shore covering rising fish, or blind casting wherever I saw water movement. Some evenings it could be really good. Rock bass and smallmouth joined the fun.
“Cottonwood Hatch”: Cottonwood trees abounded all along the canal and in early summer would literally cover the canal with white cottony seeds -“fuzzy stuff” we called it as kids – and large numbers of carp would cruise the surface vacuuming up the seeds. Some of these were big fish too. I concocted a maintenance free (but ugly) fly that did the trick very well (they weren’t selective –just myopic) that consisted of a #8 plastic popper head to which I tied a hunk of white marabou. After a while the ‘bou would get torn off, yet the plain head caught em too. I knew a kid who fished spinning tackle and a chunk of white hot dog –being fatty pork, they float! The reds sink, in case you were wondering. :)
“Chaff Hatch”: I discovered a grain mill that dumped chaff every now and then into the canal out back. The slick of straw-colored chaff brought pods of 2-4lb carp up that would vacuum up the chaff with their piggy snouts just sticking out of the surface. Just casting to the groups didn’t often result in the fish seeing your fly (I believe I used any old dry –don’t recall any specific “chaff flies”). I discovered that individuals rose in a pattern that I believe was energy efficient. They would rise and vacuum for about a foot across the surface, then descend, only to reappear about 5 feet or so further on, and it was rhythmic so I could time my casts; Pick a fish and lay the fly ahead. (Stillwater trout do this too a times). These pods stayed roughly together and worked up the slight current for 30 or 40ft and then disappear, swim back down, and start again. These fish were especially spooky (all carp are) and it was here that I discovered how the sound of line “singing” in the water (as in a firm pickup of a sunk leader) would synchronously spook an entire pod. Carp, being minnows, are “ostariophysids” having a group of paper thin bones that connect the inner ear with the swim bladder that amplify sound. I believe I was tripping an alarm in this system as I’ve not had other fish respond to taut lines slicing water in this way. Something to keep in mind possibly.
Lessee:
-Find concentrations of carp. However, spawning carp –an obvious concentration –could care less about flies in my experience.
-Exercise stealth.
-Carp are myopic.
-Keep your lines quiet in the water.
-Go barbless as they have soft mouths with tough tendons and you can really tear tissue if you aren’t careful.
Enjoy them! Gosh they can pull line of a fly reel!