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Ken

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Posts posted by Ken

  1. Mo, You are putting everyone to shame!  Missouri seems to be the cold water carp catching capital of the U.S.

    I got out for a couple hours this morning on a perfect sunny, calm, 50 degree day on the river, but wound up chalking up my second blank for the year in as many sessions.  Water temp here is 41 degrees.

  2. After soaking overnight,  I always boil my feed corn.  Just noting the amount of water it soaks up when boiling it (I have to keep adding more), and the amount it expands in the pot (only fill the boiling pot up halfway or the boiled corn may be spilling on onto the burner, which makes the Mrs. quite unhappy) tells me the boiling does a lot and is necessary.

    I have 3 buckets of boiled feed corn ready to go--from last fall.  They have been sitting out in the yard under the boats, frozen solid, all winter.  Who knows, maybe soaked, boiled, frozen, and aged corn will be the magic elixir!

  3. 6 hours ago, (MO) MOCarper said:

    Your are forgiven.............................but MO is not short for Moses!......

    I'm glad you cleared up that name thing.

    After keeping up with your phenomenal luck landing all those creek carp, it began to make me wonder if you weren't getting some sort of divine help.  Although there is nothing in our by-laws against it, waving a staff, parting the waters, then just picking up the fish somehow seems too easy.

    Now that I know that isn't the case, I'll go back to believing it must be your hat.

    <:///><

  4. 2 hours ago, clay516 said:

    Excellent!  If you only knew how many 50lbers I’ve lost?

    Hmmm... .Truth No #11???

    That brings to mind another truth that Mo may have inadvertently left out of the original Ten Truths.

    You know, the one we are all very well aware of, really don't want to admit to it, and tend to look the other when it occurs.

    Yeah, the one about fishermen and prevarication.

  5. Yeah, there may have been just a tad bit of luck in netting that fish. Just a wrong touch of the net on the line could have spelled total disaster. I have caught cold water carp that fought like the proverbial sack of potatoes, but I could always at least tell I had a fish on the line.  That poor fish must have laying in an ice water spring on the bottom of the cold river water.

    And then there are the times when you are good, but not so lucky.  Last summer I was on the river, not exactly having a stellar day, with both uncooperative fish and snags, and had an experience completely opposite of yours.  I had a decent take which stopped, and turned into another not- so- uncommon- Hudson River bottom bite:  another snag.  It felt like a log buried in the mud, not moving an inch.  After letting the river god know how I felt about getting hung up again, I started the walking up and down the shore routine, hoping for a new angle in which the hook would magically pull loose.  It didn't.  But it did start moving off on its own, heading upriver, and at a pretty good clip.  It was quickly and steadily taking a lot of line, non stop, in spite of my thumbing the spool harder and harder.  I was nervous enough now that I had started running up the shoreline, dragging my landing net clamped in my armpit, trying to regain some line.  I definitely had that tight jawed, adrenaline fed feeling that I'd G. D. better not loose this fish.  And then the hook pulled.   Yup, the river gods took some pretty heavy punishment that day.

    So, hoping that fish are fairly territorial, I will be back there putting in some time come spring, and hoping for a little more luck.

    <:///><

  6. 4 hours ago, Tyler0420 said:

    No Facebook for me. Trying not to get sucked into it. 

    I've easily resisted Facebook so far myself.  Seeing my wife going through her Facebook, it takes her like forever every day.  It seems every time someone cooks a hamburger or scratches their butt, they have to take a picture and post it on Facebook .  (Well, of the hamburger anyway).

  7. 3 hours ago, Tyler0420 said:

    Stopped by the harbor on way home from work. It’s cold and wind is blowing. Just maybe something will bite. 

     

    9DFDA328-1A02-4C78-A457-2CCB624CDE4F.jpeg

    Hmmm..........I'm ice fishing here in  NY and you are fishing in Canada in open water as far as the eye can see.  Am I missing something or just going senile?

  8. Truth #1 is absolute gospel!  It is the one etched in stone.

    Truth #9 unfortunately, can be true at times.  Especially when you are showing someone "the ropes" and attempting to impress them with your fishing know-how.

    Truth #10 is generally true, except at crunch time at the house, when a lot of those jobs on the honey-do list are already way overdue (because of Truth #10).  And you'd better not be even thinking of going fishing today.

    The rest of Mo's truths are right on, and just come with the territory.

    <:///><

  9. Nice fishing for February.  In fact, that was a good day for the summer!!

    The mirror is impressive; it looks like it has a black  X marked on its side.  You have some real torpedoes down there.

    I went fishing this morning myself, but walked down my creek on the ice to get out on the reservoir.  And didn't have the luck you did, although I was trying for perch.

    <:///><

  10. Ah, Geritol is the answer my friend.  (Apologies to you youngsters.  If you don't remember Lawrence Welk, you won't remember Geritol).

    Your local senior center has bulk sales several times a year.

    No need to worry, though, until adult Pampers are on the horizon.

    <:///><

  11. I agree with Alan.  They do feel different.  And they are noisy - the one I have creaks when playing a fish, which always makes me nervous.  I'm never sure how much creaking it's going to take before something lets go.  I've also had the tip section "re-telescope" while playing a fish.

    My opinion is they might be fine for regular fishing, but not for carp.

  12. Congratulations to all the members who got out there on the first, and actually caught some fish.  There were some real beauties.  I enjoyed the pictures of the commons, koi, mirrors, and Amy's striking virtual ghost carp.

    But all of us weren't as lucky, and here's a thread where we can check in and say we at least went out and tried our best.  Not to mention getting to record our first Blank of 2020.

    I went to two spots and found them  completely iced in, in spite of several days of above freezing temperatures and rain.  The third spot was open and looked good from the road, so I parked and carried all my stuff down to the edge of the bank.  When I looked over the guard rail I saw I had a four foot strip of ice extending out from shore.  I had gone this far, and figured I could somehow get a fish in my net, so I went down and set up.  But I didn't have to worry about netting any fish.  After several hours of sitting on a pail, trying some different baits and distances, and emptying my thermos of coffee, I decided to call it a day, and go home and check in here to see who was actually able to catch a carp on New Years.  And even though I forgot my hot seat for the pail, it was a fun session, and I'm glad I went.

  13. 3 hours ago, (TN) Cannonball said:

    I read a book about a guy who walked on water in a desert climate! MOCarper, nice way to spend the day. You should have saved the place for Discovery Month.

    Didn't get any fishing tackle for Christmas but anticipation of doing more carping this coming year. Wife and I talked about having two of our grandsons spend the night and be on the bank at sunrise.

    I would try it in the summer, but would probably get my robe all wet.

    <:///><

  14. Hi Earl,

    Welcome to our Carp Anglers Group of bankside addicts.  And I don't use the term addiction lightly.

    To get started you don't need to spend a lot of money right off the bat.  The long carp rods are nice, as are the bait runner reels, the rod pods, the electric bite alarms, and so on.  But to just get started,  use your heaviest bass rods and reels with 10 or 12 pound test line.  Cut some forked sticks around 2 feet, two for each rod (so you can set up your rod horizontally).

    The basics would be some #2 and #4 hooks, egg sinkers and bank sinkers of different weights (especially if you'll be fishing in rivers), swivels, a decent set of scales, a big net,  a baiting needle, nail clippers to cut mono,  long nosed pliers, a sling shot for baiting, a good hook disgorger (the red plastic "3 in 1 tool" is the best one I've found), a fish unhooking mat (if nothing else a bath towel works. It's easy to roll up and carry, and they save wear and tear on the fish).  Go through the Beginning Carping here and you'll get a mind boggling amount of ideas,  rigs, methods and baits.

    When questions pop up, ask.

    A PM is coming your way.

    <:///><

  15. I didn't mention the "other end" of the way I tie my hairs, which isn't mentioned a lot of the time.

    I tie a loop in the end of the hair  (just tie a comfortable size loop, the size doesn't matter) by bringing the end of the line back on itself (a bight), forming the  loop, then tying a surgeon's knot ( an overhand knot brought through twice).

    Then I push the end of the loop through one end of a swivel, bring the loop up and over the swivel, back down to the line, and pull tight.  The swivel gives me something to easily tie to.

  16. Tying hairs is no big deal.  When I get low on hairs I just sit in front of the boob tube and tie up enough to replenish my supply all at once.  Get a box that has a lot of small compartments and put your finished hairs in them, one to a compartment, to avoid untangling future messes.

    Take a look at this:  https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=tightropetb&p=how+to+tie+a+hair+rig#id=2&vid=1b4bd81911e7338dc36c4eeda5fa2fd3&action=click

     

    Tie your hair rigs with different length hairs, keeping the short ones on one side of the box, and the long ones on the other.  You don't need a long hair for a couple kernels of corn, but you'll need longer ones for bread balls, or whatever.

    One thing I usually do different from the video is tie my hairs into a long loop, and not the tiny little loop you usually see at the end of the hair.  Depending on how long you want the hair to be, you hold the hair against the hook at that length and do your wraps.  You'll wrap the knot creating the hair right into the wraps, against the hook.  The reason I do this is there is no knot to rip a hole in my corn kernels.  Also, after short time my braid hairs will fray, making it harder to get the baiting needle through the little loop.  With the whole hair being a loop, this doesn't happen as much. At first I was worried that having a double line creating the hair would make it easier for the fish to detect, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  Try them both ways and see what you think.

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