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Crappie.com 1K Star General
carp?
Lately we have been mixing in some carp fishing between crappie trips. Last summer a group of Asian kids showed us how to make oatmeal dough balls that stay on the hook. It has been remarkably successful. Sweet corn doesn't hold a candle to oatmeal (it has to be the 1-minute or quick kind though). Nice to have a bait that doesn't die on you, stink or rot.
It is amazing how soft carp bite. The pattern we have found is a preliminary peck, peck, peck (no heavier than a dink sunfish even when the carp run over 10#, a short run which is dropped then a return to peck and then the take on the second run, which is when the hook is set. The oatmeal stands up the process very well if properly kneaded in the beginning. It seems like you have to wait them out while they make up their minds, although not always. Sometimes they will just lay there, too, with out a run, and then it is a matter of "gee, that line isn't behaving properly".
This is slackline fishing on the bottom for which I use a 32nd oz jig head with a size 6 steelhead hook. The oatmeal doughball sinks and provides enough extra weight for decent casting on medium light spinning tackle. My partner uses a 6 or 4 circle, we both use light lines no more than 6 or 8# test and have found that hi-vis is very helpful, since much of this is line watching.
Where we have been fishing there is very little current but where there is any the junction point between moving and still water, especially if it is deep, almost always holds some carp, if there are any there. This also works as well in lakes where carp some times cruise, provided you can establish their cruise pattern.
We do not see that carp are line or leader shy, but they will drop real quick, if they feel the rod through a tight line, if there is too much weight, or the hook is too big. The dough ball doesn't need to be over a nickel size in diameter either. Almost no carp we take are deeply hooked, nearly all only in the thick of the lip. A hook set on the second run works best for us, although with a circle hook a strong first run might be enough. Be sure to stay around your rod, or a strong take might give it a swim.
Be sure to have your drag set properly, it will be needed.
All fish we catch in the metro are released including the carp, although we will give one of them away once in a while. Our biggest to date runs around 12 - 14# and we hit one spot where the crappies and carp alternated (although on different baits).
Crappie.com Legend
This is the whole idea behind the bolt rig which is THE standard carp rig around the world. I mostly float fish for carp, but I have recently tried the bolt rig with good success. Try it sometime.Originally Posted by no1son
For bait, I prefer sweetcorn or flavored maize.
Crappie.com 1K Star General
It makes sense to pay attention to the European specialists, but...
There are some differences.
I posted originally because I am impressed with the oatmeal dough balls, both for how they stay on the hook, how easy the materials are to manage, and how effective they are. Side by side it has outfished sweetcorn around here every time that I have witnessed. Now I can see using sweetcorn juice to moisten the oatmeal, and I intend to try that.
I am also using spare crappie tackle that I never did otherwise like for crappies, and the same jigs I use for crappies. The rod is a 7' Shakespeare Microlite, which really is more of a lt or med lt with real nice backbone than an ultralight with a Daiwa 2500 reel, spooled with 8# (?) hi-vis yellow copolymer. That will not handle 2-4 oz of lead; so the bolt rig is out. For $5 the rod was a real steal, but I had no use for it, until we got interested in carp. This summer we have had a couple we couldn't turn, too, but that is what the drag on the reel is for (and if necessary the spare spool). I haven't been spooled yet even on the ultralight reels. Having now said it, it will probably happen in the next outing, though.
I don't normally fish floats, but that is something to consider. How deep do you usually set yours?
This evening, three hours only produced 3 fish, all right around 26 - 27 inches, maybe 7 pounds apiece. The very first one did not move off at all, just took in the bait and lay there without even taking up the slack line or jiggling the rod tip at all. The line just acted funny. No crappie could have bitten more subtly. The second was pecking and just got too much of the hook as I slowly raised the line. Now the third was a bolt, one of those where you better be holding on to the rod. I had that stretch of river to myself and it was an enjoyable, peaceful evening with enough fish to be satisfying.
Carp are a lot of fun no matter how you go about it. And there aren't many of us who don't have access to them, either.
Crappie.com Legend
That's a good idea. A lot of carp guys use creamed corn for this.
Understood. When I fish the bolt rig, I use heavier carp rods designed for it.
I fish it right on the bottom.
Agreed. The hot thing in fly fishing now is carp fishing. I've seen special fly rods and lines designed for carp.
Crappie.com 1K Star General
For some years now carp have been a bonus in our crappie fishing, very often taking the tiny plastics in their own right, especially early in the season and often before complete ice out in fact. They will move into warm water inlets and street drains right along with the crappies, the sunnies and just about everything else.
At that time of the year one never really knows what was behind the tap until the hook set. To a certain extent that remains true throughout the season, but is far more likely very early. About the only distinction is that any peck peck peck is likely sunfish. Everything else is that one timer, often including some of the sunfish bite, we associate with crappies and no harder regardless of the species or the size.
Then it is the bolt that they all do to one extent or another that tells you if the drag was set correctly in the first place.
Curiously it is my experience with muskies that they seem to be able to distinguish heavier lines from lighter ones with more stretch and will interrupt that bolt to try to cut the lighter lines, at least the larger ones seem to.
Crappie.com 1K Star General
Still real active carp. A good bite last evening. Hooked 7 and landed 5 with the biggest just under 30". All the bite came between about 6:30 and 8; so I was pretty busy for a while. Only one bolt, the rest of the bite was nibble and suck. So I got to where on the first nibble I handled the rod with the line almost tight to tell the difference. The fish were laying right at the bait pecking at it and sucking on it. I was fishing a relative soft tipped rod and got the hook sets on the longer holds of the sucks. The oatmeal dough balls held up real well as the carp alternated between the two. I got my bait stolen if I waited for the bolt. A real pleasant evening that started about 4 but had no bite until about 6:30. I was using fluorescent yellow line. Between watching it and the rod tip I was able to detect the bite so soft that there was nothing to feel. I had to fish slightly slack line, I got no action at all on a tight line. This was also right over the side on channel wall; so I was right over the fish on a straight drop about 6 feet down to water about 10' deep along the wall at the edge of a very soft current.
I had to change my tactics from earlier, since we are no longer getting the runs with the bait we were earlier in the season. This has become much more like bait fishing perch over the side of an anchored boat and the bite is every bit as soft, in fact, generally softer than one gets from the perch.
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