Following our success in January in mostly frozen water, we had decided to give it a try at ice-fishing for carp...

Fran drove all the way down to Boston with all the necessary gear (including some quite creative stuff he built by himself!). Sott and Vinny joined him on the Charles river at 7:30, and lazy-myself joined around 9AM...

Just when I was arriving, I saw Vinny's rod moving and he was soon busy working on a nice fighter through a tiny hole in the ice...

Now, watch carefully, our first ice carp coming out of the Charles "womb"...

Here is Vinny, the happy captor of the very first ice carp, with his assistant Scott (can't say net-man here!). Probably a ten pounder, we didn't weigh it.

After a while, Vinny went to give some quarters to one of these infernal machines which proliferated in Boston... And sure enough, he got a bite... So I took the liberty of playing the fish, a smaller one. Tricky, tricky, to play them through such a tiny hole!

Here are interesting contraptions that Fran was using. This rod is even smaller than a scooby doo rod!

Then Scott got tired of watching us catch commons... He finally caught a carp, and what a carp... An almost fully-scaled magnificent mirror.

And to add insult to injury... He caught another mirror!

So four hours of fishing, two commons, two mirrors... Now who said it didn't make sense to go ice-fishing for carp? Hmmm? <_<

Bl**dy Typical!

Fran does all the work and then you young "whippersnappers" catch the first fish!!

I want to catch one through the ice like that! I presume the ice won't be disappearing anytime soon?

Iain.

Yes, Fran was very unlucky today, but we'll not forget we made it thanks to him!

The weather is absolutely beautiful today as you can see. The ice is very thick in some spots, but not that thick elsewhere. So I don't think it will unfreeze that easily, but you'll have to ask the weatherman (you know, the guy playing with random predictions which never materialize?)...

That waas quite amazing good going to all Sure puts to rest the qustion can carp be caught thru ice???? I like all the setups looks like alot of fun Ed

Hey partner!

You're not suggesting that these carp were FEEDING are you?

Don't go there! Don't go there!

Iain.

ALRIGHT...NOW YOU'VE GONE AND DONE IT....I gotta add that to my list of carp goals......CATCH A CARP THRU THE ICE.

Way to cool guys!!!!!!!

What did you use for bait?
How did you choose the spot to drill the hole?

Details man...I need details!!!

We asked a hobo called Scott to drill the holes... See below.

Well, our strategy was basically to make holes in spots where we had caught tons of fish in the past few months, then to proceed by trial and error... Now why did most holes not produce and two holes produced two fish each? No clue.

Bait: sweet corn was the bait of the day... Scott had a bite on bread, I believe, but lost this carp -- yeah, he's the only one who lost carp today...

Drag: very very loose... I tried playing the fish with the top of the rod under water, but the holes are too small for that, the rod tip keeps banging on the ice. So we left the drag very loose and basically waited for the fish to tire. Two of them gave a very nice fight, they were definitely NOT sluggish.

All fish were caught on an open bail. My two rods stayed desperately silent with their close bail and baitrunner. We theorized that bites are very cautious... I actually saw several times my line moving oh-so-slightly, then nothing. Fran got his clever little flags go up several times, but no fish hooked.

Awesome guys - totally freakin' awesome . I went out last night and again this morning - the usual culprits plus some rainbow trout. No carp though , maybe next time I'll set up.

Wow, amazing fishing, guys! I was going to visit you there, because I finished job early, but you were gone... Anyway, great fish and pictures!