I walked through the door and sat down for nearly 5 minutes before the question of fishing came up. It began with, "Where are we fishing tomorrow?" In which I replied, "I don't know, it all depends on the weather......the National Weather Service out of Wilmington is prediction severe thunderstorms, quarter sized hail, and damaging winds......" A few minutes later Jake grabbed his phone and proceeded to check the current radar....."It looks clear now, lets go fishing!" I looked over to Amanda to see if she'd break Jake's heart for me......"what do you wanna do?" I asked her. To which she replied, "I don't care.....I'll go fishing." (That didn't quite work out like I wanted it to.) At 7pm we began getting rods ready, grabbing rain gear, etc. I had a feeling that was going to be a long wet night. Since the potential for very dangerous conditions existed we decided to leave the kayaks at home. After a little back and forth discussion with Jake he decided that he wanted to try for carp at a local nearby lake. I had no problem with that, in fact it was probably the best news I had heard all day. Over the last few weeks I have met up with a local carp fisherman, Jetson, as he fished a local lake close to the house.The amount of passion he had shown for the sport of carp fishing was nuts.......borderline insanity probably. After spending two outings with Jetson I could feel myself getting the desire to give it another shot. Carp fishing is what I would consider to be "feast or famine", meaning that when you catch carp you catch a lot but when they aren't biting.....they aren't biting. Over the last 3 years I've spent maybe a dozen trips fishing for carp, all of which except one ended in a skunking. (No fish.) It had effectively killed my desire to pursue carp any further. With the new found desire and passion I was ready to give it another shot.
We loaded everything up and hit the road around 7:30pm, after stopping at a gas station for corn, oats, food, and drinks for the night we finally arrived at the lake as the sun was setting over the tree line. (Well to be honest it was setting over a storm that was just above the tree line, but you get the point.) We quickly unloaded our gear and started tying our rigs on.
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| Kayak Seats make great bank seats!!!! |
Its probably important to mention here that we carp fish much differently that most carp fisherman. Today most people who target carp use what is known as Euro Gear. (Gear that originated in European Carp fishing) Euro gear consists of a variety of products ranging from terminal tackle (hair rigs, leaders, special sinkers, etc.), baiting stations, catapults and launchers (for chumming bait), long rods and large spinning reels, tent-like shelters, sophisticated bite alarms, etc. Now although I don't use "Euro Gear" it doesn't mean it doesn't serve a purpose or that it isn't effective. However, if you want to carp fish you don't NEED Euro gear. In most instances your medium heavy bass rods will work just fine.
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Rigging
For carp fishing we prefer a slip rig (sinker------swivel------hook) with a 1/2 oz sinker all the way up to a 3oz sinker. Sinker size is often limited by rod action/power and by current/wind. Lighter action rods won't be able to handle launching 3 oz of led, but 1/2oz of led won't keep your bait on bottom if there is any flow. In the methods we use for carp fishing the sinker actually plays apart in setting the hook. In "Euro" terms the rig we used would be considered a "Bolt Rig", which is a rig that uses the weight of the led to hook the carp. The theory behind the bolt rig is that as a carp mouths a bait he/she will suck in the bait and feel the resistance of the sinker and "BOLT" off. When this happens the weight of your sinker partially buries the hook into the carp's mouth. Now our rigging is much modified, but it follows the same principal. Instead of using the larger lead (2oz and up) to set the hook we choose to use sinkers around an ounce and place our rods in rod holders. As the fish feels the resistance of the sinker and bolts off, he/she is met with the resistance of a rod in a rod holder and a reel set with a light drag. The rod holders we use are homemade rod holders crafted from 1.5" pvc pipe, 2 hose clamps, and a 16" section of rebar or thread all.
As for hook size, we prefer a size 2.....not 2/0. It is a rather small hook but trust me it works. We have used as small as a size 4 and up to a size 1/0. Pictured above is a 3/4oz casting sinker, a swivel, 10" leader, and a size 4 hook with 4 kernels of sweet corn. This is the rig we use 9/10 times when fishing for carp. Which brings me to my next point, Euro Carpers have secret bait concoctions that have a list of ingredients 15 to 20 items long. It works, don't get me wrong.....but we like to keep things simple. When I go fishing I don't wanna go grocery shopping before hand, so we grab what we can and hit the water. For our hook bait we use canned whole kernel sweet corn, and for added attraction we use what Euro Carpers call an Oat "Packbait". In plain words, we pack oats around our corn nuggets. As the corn and oats hit the water the oats begin to dissolve leaving your kernels of corn in a pile of oats.To do this all you need to do is grab a palmful of oats and add a little water until you can make a ball. (Seen below)
For rods we use our typical bass rods, medium heavy spinning outfits are preferable because their drag makes a clicking noise as it is being taken out. (You wont have to look at your rods to see the fish taking drag in a rod holder.) We do use baitcasting outfits as well, but we keep a little closer eye on those rods because the drags are somewhat silent. For line we run 10 to 15 pound braid or monofilament......really whatever is on your rod at the time should do fine.
Report
Once our rigs where all tied and baited up we all decided where we wanted to fish. Past experience has taught us that keeping our baits in one general area seems to work better than spreading them out. We picked an open spot in between 2 docks and chumed a whole can of corn, about 5 -10 feet off of the end of the docks. We all then casted our baits into the chummed area and set our rods in rod holders.
At this point it was a waiting game. A couple of hours passed without the first bite, everyone knew this so we started playing with our phones. Occasionally someone would look up at a rod to see if anything was happening and then back to their phone they went. At one point Jake had gotten tired of looking at his phone and was walking the edge of the water looking at the giant shad that were running the concrete walls. He got about 50 yards away from his rod when all of a sudden I look up from reading a fishing report on my cell phone to find that his rod was doubled over and drag slipping. I yelled down the bank to him, and he immediately started sprinting back down the bank in flip flops. He pulled his rod out of the rod holder and began reeling the fish in, he immediate announced that it wasn't very big....which is a line we all like to use no matter the size of the fish. It only takes that one time of calling out "big fish" and later finding out that its a small fish with a bad attitude.. Not knowing exactly what to believe I lowered the net to the water and awaited the first signs of a fish. After a 2 minute battle we landed the first fish of the night at 6lbs and 8oz. As we struggled to free the hook from the net Jake yells out, "Rod!" Amanda's rod had bowed and then the fish finally realized it was hooked, and no sooner than Amanda and I had turned around we heard the clicking of the drag being pulled out. Jake cleared his hook out of the net, rolled the carp into the wet grass, and threw me the net for Amanda's fish. It appeared to be an identical twin to Jake's carp, however it went just a little bit heavier at 7lbs 12oz.
We wouldn't get another bite for an hour and a half, but once again two rods went down within seconds of each other. This time Amanda had to sit out as Jake landed another carp in the 6lb range and I got my first fish of the night, a channel cat around 4lbs.
To be honest I don't remember much after my head hit the pillow that night. I was probably the most exhausted I had been since driving home from Lake Erie a few weeks ago. I do however, remember waking up to a message from Jake the next morning asking to go back and fish that same spot again. This time around the weather forecast was much more severe, 70 percent chance of thunder storms every hour with a tornado watch which blanketed all of southern Ohio. We both examined the Doppler radar and decided that we could indeed sneak a few hours of fishing in between storms.
Three hours passed without a bite and the storms had began to close in around us, so close that we began to hear the thunder rumbling in the distance. I told Jake that maybe we could catch a few carp as the pressure dropped before the storm came in. At this point I don't know if I believed what I was saying or whether I was just trying to give everyone something to look forward to. I reached for my phone and began going through a few old fishing reports when all of a sudden I hear a steady clicking in my right ear. As I look up I hear Amanda and Jake both simultaneously say my name. I look up to find my rod doubled over and my drag slipping at a rather alarming slow and steady pace. The roud was doubled over and the drag was slipping, now on most small fish the rod would bounce up and down. On this particular fish the rod stayed buried in the rod holder....this one was different. I picked the rod up and held it high. The speed of the drag stayed the same slow and steady rate for nearly the next 15 seconds. At one point I even thought I was going to get spooled so I reached down and tightened my drag 2 more clicks and walked to the end of the nearest dock. This fish was in no hurry to get where he was going, and that's what really had me scared. I looked over to Jake and Amanda and I told them both that this was a big fish........something that I rarely say unless I am 100 percent positive that it is big. After the fish stopped ripping drag I told Jake to grab the camera, If I was going to lose this fish at least we were going to have photographic proof of the battle.
The picture above was taken while the fish was making yet another run after Jake had grabbed the camera, all I could do is hold the rod up high and let him take drag. You can actually see in the picture that I was tired of holding the reel handle, so while I waited for him to stop ripping drag I decided to let my arm rest. Eventually he decided that he didn't want to take drag any longer so he started going from left to right. Each time he shifted directions we could see the boils the fish made. The battle soon passed the five minute mark and I began to wonder how much longer the hook and line were going to hold up. I started making progress with each pass from left to right the fish made, I took a few feet of line here and a few feet of line there. After 6 or 7 minutes the fish came within sight, it wasn't the 20 plus pound giant that I had initially thought he was but he was still a solid fish. To make things even more exciting we confirmed that it was in fact a mirror carp, a genetic mutation of a common carp, making it much rarer than its non-mutated brethren. As he got within netting distance he still had a ton of energy, with the clock ticking Amanda tried to get the net deep enough to land him early.
Eventually she got the net around the carp....and it wasn't happy.
All in all we had a pretty good couple of trips. If nothing else it got our confidence back to where it needed to be and gave us a little motivation to go out and try it again. Next time around we will be in the yaks, which should make things VERY interesting. Rod holders, an anchor, possibly even stake out pole to keep the yak from swaying, and a quality net are going to be a must.
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