Ken
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Posts posted by Ken
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Welcome to CAG.
Here is a video that might help out with hair rigs.
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6 hours ago, CarpingWashington said:
Any carp fisherman (with a rod), still active on this thread?
We still have people joining CAG, but there are fewer and fewer people posting on this site.
Good luck in your search.
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1 hour ago, Nanook said:
Some days you get the carp and other days you get the turtle. I got the turtle?
What kind of turtle is that? It looks like a dinner plate dipped in oil. Here in NY about the only turtles I catch are the snappers, and when fishing for carp that doesn't happen. When fishing with worms you'll catch a snapper now and then, and the smaller painted turtles are experts at stealing worms off the hook.
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8 hours ago, (TN) Cannonball said:
I have molds for no-roll sinkers, 1, 2, 3 oz., from Barlow's Tackle. I pick up lead bullets at my gun club. Wheel weights are good but take a bit of cleaning and fluxing.
Thanks for the tip on the no-roll sinker molds. I just tried ordering one, but the site wouldn't allow me to add the mold to the cart. I'll call them Monday.
I've experimented using bank sinkers for inline sliding sinkers. You can make a sinker 2 oz or 3 oz easily by laying 1 oz bank sinkers top to bottom on each other and rubber banding them together. Then I take a piece of line, tie a swivel on it, and tie the other end to one of the sinkers. Just thread the main line through the swivel and you've got a practically friction free sliding sinker. This works well in soft, mucky bottoms where you don't want the sinker dragging your bait into the sediment. Simply adjust the length of the swivel link to the depth of the muck. A 5" or 6" link should be long enough for the sinker to go down in the sediment as much as it wants, and still have the swivel above the muck, giving you a free flowing main line.
On normal bottoms, the shorter you make the swivel link, the more sensitive bites will be detected. One drawback with this rig is the sinker will invariably get tangled in the net when netting a fish. You might as well just bite the bullet and cut the sinker off and retie, rather than risking having a stroke trying to untangle everything with a carp in the net waiting to be unhooked.
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The big carp has a funky looking mouth. Maybe from dining on too many zebra mussels.
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1 hour ago, (MO) MOCarper said:
It's cause the chinese factories shut down- it'll pick up. I can't find lead sinkers.......haven't checked Big Carp Tackle in awhile................ MO
One of the best investments I ever made was sinker molds. I've got one for different size bank sinkers, 1/4 oz slip sinkers, and when they started proving too small I bought and egg sinker mold that goes from 1/8 oz up to 3 oz., I also make balls for my muzzleloaders. The way I can loose rigs in the rivers, the sinker molds have saved me a ton of money. And I've always enjoyed making my own "stuff". If you fish rivers, the egg sinkers can be flattened so they won't roll so bad by putting a piece of coat hanger wire through the hole and flattening the sinker with a hammer. Then you have to put the wire in a vise and hammer the now flattened sinker off the wire. This is labor intensive, but it works. You can tale a piece of plate, drill a hole in one end large enough to get the wire through, put the plate on the wire between the vice and the sinker, and hammer the sinker off by hitting the plate. Have also use a small pair of pliers, but it's worth while making the plate. If anyone has an easier way of flattening the egg sinkers, I'd like to hear it.
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Tyler,
Try contacting 'Edward Sheffield' (CAG member) about the St Lawrence.
Good luck up there. There is some great fishing to be had on the St Lawrence. Keep us posted.
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Is anyone else noticing a fishing line shortage in the stores where you are? Like, there is none? I've gone to Walmarts, Dicks Sporting Goods, and the local bait/tackle shop and there is no mono or braid. Other than a few spools of that cheap Chinese white mono where you get 300 yards of line for $3.00. This has been going on for awhile here. Guess I'm going to have to bite bullet and order on-line and pay the shipping and handling.
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I checked out this thread and found the video "Ol captain gets stumped" amusing. Here is a guy that's serious about landing his fish!
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Hi David,
Welcome to CAG.
A suggestion is, when going through the archives for information, it is always a good idea to check the date that archive was posted on before answering/following up on it. For example, this thread was posted in 2010, and probably some of the guys who were on it aren't even around here anymore. That's not saying someone won't come through with an answer for you, but chances are they won't.
Tight lines
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I am so sorry to hear of Neil's passing.
Carlymoomoo - That is a wonderful eulogy, and no doubt one of the most sincere & heartfelt Neil will have. Great picture story also.
I never met Neil in person, but felt I knew him from his frequent contributions on the forum and from our snail mail correspondence. I still have envelopes and manila envelopes with his return address stickers full of 'carp stuff' that he sent me. He always took the time to answer.
Neil did a lot for CAG and will be missed.
R.I.P. Neil
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On 7/25/2020 at 8:09 AM, (TN) Cannonball said:
There it is- 26 lb. 9 oz. Caught lots more since then but nowhere near that size.
26-9: That's a respectable fish!
A lot of times you have to be careful what you wish for, but we could use some of those guys up here (I think..............)
Anyway, Cannonball, now I've seen a buff, lol.
Aside: The same thing happened here in NY this year. A bowfisher killed a 53lb 10oz carp in Chautauqua Lake. The state record is 50lb 6oz. The bow-killed carp isn't eligible for the record because it wasn't caught angling.
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On 7/22/2020 at 8:17 PM, (TN) Cannonball said:
Are the fish hitting light? I'm thinking it might be buffs mouthing the bait and dropping it.
FB members, let's help solve this dilemma.
The buffs haven't made it this far north yet. I'm still waiting to see my first one.
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I don't think too much of circle hooks for carp fishing either.
I have used a lot of Eagle Claw hooks, which I know don't come highly recommended here, as well as different models of the Gammy hooks. This year I have been using two models of Wacker's carp hooks (anti snag and anti eject) in different sizes. I haven't really used them enough yet to pass any judgments on them. They don't have long shanks.
I just picked up a pack of Eagle Claw TroKar 'glow bug' hooks which are wide gap, short shank & surgically sharpened. I tied up a couple hairs with them but haven't had them in the water yet. Hopefully tomorrow. My thinking is the short shank may be picked up easier, and will not need as many wraps to get the hair up where it needs to be for the 45 degree angle.
As far as pictures go, it's tough to post mine because I'm still dropping mine off at Walmarts to have them developed.
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I think I've tried about everything that's out there. Especially this year with more time than ever to fish. I've been going through hair rigs vs bait on the hook, long hairs-short hairs, long hook links vs short hook links, running rigs, free lining, bolt rigs, different size (needle sharp) hooks, etc. This isn't a new problem, rather a chronic problem of a life time.
Another very frustrating one that is even more prevalent is the number of missed fish on the take. I get many short hits that take a few inches of line, and stop. These, of course, may not be all carp though. I hope not.
You are absolutely right about the bankside vocabulary. Which can be somewhat embarrassing on occasion. Have you ever been fishing all by yourself and lost it, turning the air into a dark blue stench, then turn around and realize you aren't all alone?
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Sent PM
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If you would suggest one thing to do to reduce hook pulls, what would it be?
Or, another way, in your opinion, what contributes to the most hook pulls?
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I have also been remiss by not posting to this thread sooner. But being a life long, and practiced procrastinator I suppose posting just a week late is tolerable.
I've been getting more than my fair share of fishing in this year, but haven't been setting the world on fire with a lot of fish or many big fish. The first week in April started off with a bang with that one big one and several more in the high teens. I must have patted myself on the back too hard because the blanks then started rolling in, session after session, and nothing was working. I pig headedly stayed on the Mohawk knowing it would suddenly pick up and I would start hauling, as I've always done there in April and May in the past. That never happened. I did a tremendous amount of experimenting with different baits and rigs, but to no avail. Finally the water chestnuts came up and closed off much of the "good" shoreline, and I moved to the Hudson. And started catching a few fish.
So far I've caught 47 carp, with five twenties mixed in with mostly all doubles. But with the hours I've put in, that's not as good as it sounds. The canal corporation has had both rivers down to a trickle all spring, with the locks closed until the past week. Perhaps that had something to do with the scarcity of fish. Scarcity of carp I should say. There has been no scarcity of catfish on the Hudson. It seems those pests know when and where I'm coming and school in front of me by the dozen. I've been fattening them up with chum and tubs of pack bait all season.
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You absolutely did the right thing releasing that fish!
And as far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure everyone else on here, you are the owner of the RI state record.
Congratulations.
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??? Edit ???
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What is the bead you speak of?
I used a yellow crow bead (crafting bead), available in Wally's craft isle. There are three main types of beads: Seed beads, which are the tiny ones for work on a loom, pony beads, and the crow beads which are the largest. Just about the size of a large kernel of corn.
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Awhile back Savayman posted that elastic hair bands make a great keeper for taken down rods. I posted back that I use rubber bands and they work just fine. Recently I spotted a hair band in Wally's parking lot, and, remembering the post, picked it up, and tried it on a rod. Yup, they work better than rubber bands and now I have them on all my rods. The second kudo also goes to Savayman on the using of plastic beads as pick-ups when using pack. As of today I am a believer.
This spring has been somewhat of a disaster for me as far as fishing goes. Usually May turns into a very productive month, but blank has been the name of my game this May. Like the last thirteen sessions have been blanks. And it's not like I haven't been getting out. With this Covid thing going on (and on) I haven't been working, and if it wasn't raining, I was fishing. Taking up space on the bank is more like it. It was so frustrating that when my 'never fail' baits, swims, and rigs all dismally failed, I went through the CAG baits and methods sections to get new stuff to try. Same results!
This morning was a sunny beautiful one, and I wound up down on the Hudson for a change of pace. I've been concentrating on the shorelines of the Mohawk River because in a couple more weeks they will start being choked shut by water chestnuts. And those shorelines usually turn out a lot of nice carp right now. What is happening there this year is beyond me. Anyway, the first thing I noticed that was different today was I caught a fish. Then, shortly after that, I caught another one. Wow! This is fun again.
So my strawberry pack was working to perfection with the fish coming in pretty regularly, and I toyed with the idea of trying Savayman's recommendation of using a plastic bead as a pick-up. I was using two kernels of sweet corn, like I always do, and I really didn't want to interrupt 'my bite' with a plastic bead, but figured this would be the perfect time to see if it really worked, as the fish were there and cooperating. So, with reservations I switched to a hair with a yellow plastic crow bead. I'd give it a little while, then go back to the sweet corn. Well, the 'little while' turned into four minutes and I had an 18lb - 3oz carp coming in to the net. And I kept catching until I ran out of pack. The cats like the crow bead too. I am sold on the bead idea: It sure beats the time consuming rebaiting with corn all the time.
Oh yeah; one more thing. Earlier this year I bought a new Wychwood rod on here from buckeyeman, and outfitted it with a new Okuma baitrunner. Today was the first time I used the rod, and that was the rod I was catching on. Now I know that had nothing to do with finally breaking my nasty blanking streak, as I am not at all superstitious, but hey, you never know.............
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I saw the first sign of spawning (splashing & chasing) of carp today in a backwater of the Mohawk River in very shallow water. There were three or four groups of carp churning the water up pretty good. There were several big snappers moving around in there also. I haven't seen any surface activity by the carp out on the main river yet, including leaping or shouldering, which is unusual. The carp fishing is still slow to nonexistent, depending on the day, even though the water temp is in the mid to high 50's. At least the cats are starting to bite consistently, but I don't know if that's a blessing or not. We've got a forecast of possible snow for tonight and cold tomorrow, so tomorrow won't be a stellar day to be out fishing.
St Lawrence river
in Ontario Meet, Greet & Questions
Posted
Congrats on your carp: He saved you from a dreaded blank. It's always great to get on a new water and catch. Even though you lost those 5, you hooked them fair and square, and they were lost due to circumstances beyond your control. The eel grass is starting float down the shorelines here on the Hudson also, making it tough to keep the lines free and clear.