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macfish

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Posts posted by macfish

    Keeping it simple. . .

    in Pictures, Stories & Video

    Posted

    macfish here. I haven't posted much this summer, but this has been one of the oddest summers yet for me personally and definitely locally. The Mississippi River was flooded locally almost as severely as 1993 which was supposed to be a once-in-a 500 year event. That doesn't mean it could only happen once in a 500 year period, but that by the odds it probably wouldn't reoccur again this soon. In the last couple of weeks we have had a lot of rain and two towns North of us had 12 and 15 inches of rain in a 24 hour period a week ago Thursday. That water all flooded into our local Mark Twin Lake (built and administered by the Army Corps of Engineers) which swelled from the normal pool of 18,000 acres to almost double that size due to flooding. After one heavy day of rain the lake height rose 6 feet. That may not sound like much but that's a 6 foot increase spread over 25,000 acres of water. That flooding took two of our best fishing areas out of circulation so since early summer I have stayed to one lake except for one side trip to a second local lake which was a blank. I started off this summer going a bit simpler using canned sweet corn with potato bread wrapped around it. About a month later I dropped the bread and now just use the sweet corn alone, no chumming, no maize and have been steadily catching. I met a local man who's on the lake every day usually (disabled Viet Nam vet) and he just uses canned corn or hominy, circle hooks only with heavy Zebco combos fishing about 15 to 20 feet off the bank. Now he does chum (throws out canned corn, shelled corn or wheat), but I have not chummed this summer and haven't even used a packbait or method mix combo all summer (except the bread wrap) and I've still caught. My fish haven't been as large as the largest I've caught, but there have been more of them overall. Best of all I have a friend who has recently gone back to carping with me whereas he usually fished for cats or sunnies or bass before when we were together. Today I usually head out with two rods, one a medium weight baitcaster and the other a 8'6" Fenwick steelhead spinning rod with a 2500 Shimano with 8lb. line. I rig them up with run rigs (1/4 to 3/8oz. egg sinkers with a rubber bead above a swivel then maybe 6-8 inch hooklink to the hook with 2 to 4 kernels of Del Monte Summercrisp canned corn. I've tried many others but for me this brand of corn always works best. I haven't met a fish that's outmatched me yet and had a whole lot of fun! Jonathan

    a new guy

    in Carp on the Fly

    Posted

    macfish here. Bosshoss, welcome to the forum and carping! You got one fine looking fish there. Michigan has a very strong chapter of the Carp Anglers Group. The Sangamon River and Ford Lake are two of the places they often fish. Hopefully one of their members will see this thread and respond to you. Jonathan

    Blanking on the "Golly G"

    in Other Species Stories

    Posted

    macfish here. Horace, did you use salad shrimp, precooked regular shrimp, lower grade shrimp sold in boxes/bags just for bait (I've bought it up here and man, was it ever strong smelling stuff!)? Maximus seems to be the only one who always seems to catch the keepers (naps, that is)! I'll be heading out of here pretty soon trying what I've heard is the newest great thing for catfish: turkey liver. Jonathan

    2008, my best carping year so far . . .

    in Pictures, Stories & Video

    Posted

    macfish here. John, I think Jim and I (he's the guy who beginning to get into this) have guesstimated most of our fish in the 6-9lb. range, but there was one that went 10lb. We weighed that with my Mustad spring scale, but I doubt it's very accurate so I cannot vouch for weights taken with it. Both of us are sure there are larger fish in this lake (it's about 25 acres) and my largest last summer was a feisty 12lber. We haven't done any chumming at all yet, so there is much that could increase our take and improve the chance of getting bigger fish. I'm just enjoying catching fish almost every time I've been out. I'll see if I can't get some still pics with my Canon digital camcorder. It's not real high res but since my older Nikon digital camera bit the dust when I dropped it, it's all I've got. Jonathan

    2008, my best carping year so far . . .

    in Pictures, Stories & Video

    Posted

    macfish here. I've wanted to post about the success I have had this year so far. I'm sorry I don't have any pics to share. I know I've caught more carp and larger carp overall this year than ever before. Some of this is probably due to our local lake settling down and maybe also all the rain and cooler weather we've had which has filled the lake to overflowing several times. I've never found the local carp so willing to bite and they've been pretty consistent in that. This year I've also had a few guys I can fish with on a regular basis. One friend has been with me several times over the last two or three years when I've been fishing for carp, but he's always been fishing for catfish, sunfish or just something other than carp. This year he's converted. There's a funny story connected to that. About a month ago we were fishing on a Sunday afternoon and hooking and bringing in carp. It was probably the best single day I've ever had carp fishing. Jim was fishing with his older Zebco 33. He was hooking fish but they were consistently breaking his line. He was getting pretty frustrated and asked me why I thought it might be happening. I asked how old his line was and he thought about it for a second then said it was probably about ten years old. I told him it was probably too old and thus breaking. He asked if there was anything he could do to fix it and I said re spool your reel. Neither of us had any spare line with us so that wasn't possible. He tried pulling the oldest most worn line out and cutting it off. When he got to the newer stuff he found he could still break it easily with his fingers. I offered him an old bait casting outfit I had and showed him how to cast it. He got pretty good with it after the third cast and never once had a snarl. When he got a fish with it he was hooked and bought a bait casting reel and new rod when he got home. He's caught a few carp with his new outfit (Pinnacle reel and Berkley bait casting rod) and was shocked at how much nicer the new reel and rod are. He wanted another bait casting reel, something a little better than the Pinnacle so I suggested an Abu Garcia 6500C3 or a Shimano Cardiff. He just got the 6500 in today and was very impressed with the quality of materials, workmanship and the smooth way it operates. He hasn't been able to fish with it yet, but he's getting pretty excited about this. I forgot to say that when he was a kid growing up in Iowa he and his brothers fished for catfish and carp all the time. The catfish they would keep and gave the carp to other folks. Now he's really keen about letting them go. By the way, almost all of the carp have come on canned corn, specifically Del Monte Summer Crisp. I've tried others but none have done better for me. In the last week I've taken to putting 2 to 3 kernals on a hook them wrapping 1/4 of a slice of potato bread over that. It works really well. Jonathan

    Backyard Alligator Gar

    in Other Species Stories

    Posted

    macfish here. Dustin, great fish! I would love to catch an alligator gar. I think we still have a few in Missouri, but I believe they're pretty rare up here. Maybe someday I'll get down Texas way or other areas in the South to fish for them. Jonathan

    A nice haul on the Mon!!

    in Pictures, Stories & Video

    Posted

    macfish here. Justin, great to see that you and Rob (Possum) are out getting after them. I was surprised at the mat but even more surprised by the rodpod. Is that Eric's as well? Great fish guys! They're bigger than all of the ones I've been catching but I don't mind that a bit. Great going! By the way, give Eric a howdy for me. Good to hear you guys get together. Jonathan

    The Journey Continues.............

    in Pictures, Stories & Video

    Posted · Edited by macfish

    macfish here. Horace, the more things change the more they stay the same. I always know when I read one of your posts it will almost always warm the cockles of my heart. Well, again, you did not disappoint. I think it was the baby goslings that did me in. I've been around them before and I'm very surprised you didn't have an accompanying story about being attacked by a very protective mama or daddy. Of course your geese are probably the urban variety which are more accustomed to human presence. Great story and pics! Thanks, Jonathan

    P.S. the other thing you seem to have been missing is the Piggly Wiggly for your chum/bait run or is that line only in the Carolinas?

    Ol Captain and Cool Dad caught smoking Grass!!

    in Pictures, Stories & Video

    Posted

    macfish here. Horace, great job again. Congrats on your new personal best (fish and embroidery)! Thanks too for sharing your super secret method for catching grassies. I've seen a few around here but never knew just what to try for them. I'm surprised that Max didn't give you a little nip for that pic. Maybe he doesn't know about it yet. B) Jonathan

    The surprise of my fishing lifetime (so far)

    in Other Species Stories

    Posted

    macfish here. Ben, sorry for the loss of your brother. The fish you got is a great one. I have connected with a few of those flats and they are one of my favorite fish. One I caught on a 4" Storm firetiger pattern swim lure and one was on a piece of range cube hair-rigged on a size 8 hook. I used to hear they would only eat live bait but now I'd say if they're hungry they might just try anything. That's a grand picture of your catch. Jonathan

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