Everything That Swims: Fly Fishing for Grass Carp

Today I headed to Hollymead Lake armed with my 5/6 and a box full of huge, fluffy dry flies of all sorts. I had spent the past couple of days tying up some interesting blobs of feathers, not to imitate anything, just something that would attract a grass carp's attention. I see schools of 5 to even 20 grass carp cruising around the lake pretty often, and whenever a leaf falls out of a tree and hits the water near them, one will grab it, making them quite susceptible to a large dry fly. I have been thinking about giving it a shot with a fly rod but up until today, I had only landed them chumming corn and using spinning gear.
The first couple of fish I saw were alone, munching on the bottom, and wouldn't rise, so I kept searching until I found a school of about 10 feeding close to the bank and sipping random objects off the surface occasionally. I had a few half takes, the fish would either bump the fly or just grab part of it and spit it out. I had been using a #4 dry made of some huge white chenille and a big brown hackle wrapped around it, and then switched to a #4 neon green beetle made out of craft foam. I had a couple fish bump the fly with their nose, and finally, one took the entire fly and I hooked it. The fish immediately went ballistic, sloshing water everywhere and taking a few short runs. Then it began the routine of taking 10 yards of line every time I got him close to my net. The whole ordeal lasted about 5 minutes and finally my little brother Ewing was able to net it and we got a couple pictures.
I continued fishing for another 2-3 hours, the fish wouldn't rise, and I switched to a big wad of neon green marabou on a #4 hook, the fish would slurp the fly on the fall but they would spit it out just as fast and I wasn't able to hook them. I finally hooked a fish in the same spot using the same fly, and after a 3 or 4 minute battle, my little brother netted it as well, and we got some more pictures. We then went over to where Ewing had been catching some crappies earlier, we managed to catch 14 in the last 20 minutes before we got picked up, and they all fit very nicely into the freezer after I filetted them. I will definitely be heading back to the lake armed with a fly rod at some point this spring/summer, and I will continue trying different patterns until I am "dialed in" on the fish. Thanks for reading!