MuskieBait
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2013
- Messages
- 567
After last weekend's fun with Bowfin and Common Carp, I wanted an encore. Fishing was tough, but if you pay attention, you can find some actively feeding fish, even in midday. However, they were feeding in all the worst areas. It took a lot of work to get carp to bite, but it took even more work to try to bring them to hand.
The final stats was 3 carp landed out of 12 hooked. These freight trains were simply unstoppable with the snags surrounding me on all sides. Some would run under fallen trees as soon as they were hooked up. I may get 10 seconds if I was lucky; it was either turn them or lose them. If I force the issue, I had either pulled the hook or snapped the 15lb mono. If I tried to be patient and fight them out, they eventually find themselves deep into the fallen trees. Just can't win.
Even so...
I started searching in a back bay and found carp feeding very shallow. They were quite bold since they were protected by two large downed trees. After losing 4 carp to various aforementioned reasons, I managed to tame this 28" model.
Continuing my search, I came upon a trio of post-spawn bass still hanging out together. I pulled one aside for its photo session before the other two moved on.
There were some carp feeding near a dock. But under the dock was a lot of fallen branches plus an anchor chain. Fish were fairly easy to trick, but they knew to run under the dock as soon as there was danger. Another 2 carp lost, and a little Bowfin tried to sneak up on me. I taught another Bowfin not to eat nightcrawlers. I would later see the same Bowfin and tossed a nightcrawler to it again. It appeared he learned his lesson since I've never seen a Bowfin turn tail with such speed LOL.
It seemed all the hungry carp were in the back bay. They were again feeding very shallow and not shy at all...until I broke off 2 of them and the remaining fish became very cautious. A lot of patience later, one finally made the mistake. This time, I quick pumped the rod at the start of the run and managed to turn the fish before it even considered running into the fallen tree that had claimed the last two fish.
Returning back to the dock, I lost one more to the dock but finished the day with this little one.
The final stats was 3 carp landed out of 12 hooked. These freight trains were simply unstoppable with the snags surrounding me on all sides. Some would run under fallen trees as soon as they were hooked up. I may get 10 seconds if I was lucky; it was either turn them or lose them. If I force the issue, I had either pulled the hook or snapped the 15lb mono. If I tried to be patient and fight them out, they eventually find themselves deep into the fallen trees. Just can't win.
Even so...
I started searching in a back bay and found carp feeding very shallow. They were quite bold since they were protected by two large downed trees. After losing 4 carp to various aforementioned reasons, I managed to tame this 28" model.
Continuing my search, I came upon a trio of post-spawn bass still hanging out together. I pulled one aside for its photo session before the other two moved on.
There were some carp feeding near a dock. But under the dock was a lot of fallen branches plus an anchor chain. Fish were fairly easy to trick, but they knew to run under the dock as soon as there was danger. Another 2 carp lost, and a little Bowfin tried to sneak up on me. I taught another Bowfin not to eat nightcrawlers. I would later see the same Bowfin and tossed a nightcrawler to it again. It appeared he learned his lesson since I've never seen a Bowfin turn tail with such speed LOL.
It seemed all the hungry carp were in the back bay. They were again feeding very shallow and not shy at all...until I broke off 2 of them and the remaining fish became very cautious. A lot of patience later, one finally made the mistake. This time, I quick pumped the rod at the start of the run and managed to turn the fish before it even considered running into the fallen tree that had claimed the last two fish.
Returning back to the dock, I lost one more to the dock but finished the day with this little one.
