Thread: bait

Originally Posted by no1son

Don't have to - I have rods with "spring bobbers" built in both for open water and though the ice, as well as after market addons. That sort of thing has been around in a wide variety of weights, sensitivities and styles in American fishing for decades. I have fished that sort of tip signal for a long time (it actually accounts for most of my crappies year around).

The clear leaders are a very good idea. They seemed out not to be necessary for carp at least in the beginning. That was probably a mistake.

I forgot where you were from and that you had probably used ice tackle. The quivertip is similar but can handle bigger weights and long-distance casting.

Things were dead slow last evening, except for what was apparently bluegill nibbling on the oatmeal. Some of those bluegills run 8-10 inches; so we decided to switch targets, but I forgot to toss the nightcrawlers in on the way down to the river. So in digging around in the trunk, I turned up some GULP ALIVE. My fishing partner gets the brainstorm to use the juice on the oatmeal doughballs and down size them to about the size of a pea, puts one on his 5' panfish ultralight and almost immediately picks up a carp, maybe 8 or 9 pounds. And then a little while later a second. I took a carpsucker of maybe 3 or 4 pounds. We never did catch a bluegill for all that we had peck, peck, peck pretty regularly all evening.

Originally Posted by no1son

My fishing partner gets the brainstorm to use the juice on the oatmeal doughballs and down size them to about the size of a pea ...

Carp do eat a lot of small things, so that makes sense. I've caught lots of carp on a single grain of corn.

We have been using plain instant oatmeal doughballs at this one point in the river for the past three years and with diminishing success - less bite and what there was much less aggressive. There is not much recruitment possibility just at that point; we have become convinced that we are fishing pretty much a captive population. The same fish over and over essentially and that they have learned to be cautious of plain oatmeal.

Changing the formula on the doughballs has changed that. Good solid takes and runs are back. Last night we had 16 or 17 good takes and landed 5 fish. Only five, because we foolishly went so small on the hooks due to the tiny size of the doughballs that we weren't getting a hook set - the hook was pulling right out of the fish's mouth when we went to set the hook. What we ended up settling on and getting good hookups with was a 1/32nd oz ball head jig (no collar) with a size 6 hook. I have a stock of those that Nimrod poured for me on the steelhead/salmon heavier black nickel hooks. I powder painted them black (I powder paint all my jig heads smaller than 1/4 oz black... and I seldom use anything over 1/8 oz anyway). Of course we net all the carp, or the hooks would fail when we lifted them from the water. In the water they have not yet failed once in several years now with fish up to and over 20 pounds.

Lesson 1 is that while you can go very small on the dough ball, you can go too small on the hook.

Lesson 2 change bait when the bite slacks off and you know the fish are still there. You may not have to change much though.

Pretty basic stuff aint it, but it takes getting one's nose rubbed in the basics once in awhile...

We still like oatmeal as the basis of our dough balls for carp. Last night we used an oatmeal based putty that my partner mixed up on a whim, when his missus brought home raw oatmeal instead of instant. He ran it and some other items through the blender and moisted it with corn juice from a can of sweet corn, even a touch of flour when the result wouldn't stick together. And some other things from out of his pantry. This putty was not cooked. The dough balls we used were some where between a pea and a small marble in size. They stay on the hook as well as plain oatmeal dough balls do as well and stand up to a sting of bites very well.

Originally Posted by no1son

Lesson 1 is that while you can go very small on the dough ball, you can go too small on the hook.

Interesting since my usual size hook is a #14 fly hook. (Fits a grain of corn perfectly.)

With a bolt rig, I do use a bigger hook, though.

I certainly got bolted 5 times last evening. A size 2 octopus circle hook set itself just like it was supposed to. I was complaining earlier about an increasingly soft bite, but my fishing partner got creative and worked up a doctored dough ball paste (still based on instant oatmeal) that has turned that around. The 5 carp ranged from about 22" to about 28"; so I had some drag screaming in the process.