fishhead
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Posts posted by fishhead
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No expert here, but that would be my guess, too. I keep flipping between deformed common and hybrid.
The body and head shape certainly share some goldfish traits.
Nice capture and pics!
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Some fish just don't like the paparazzi and notoriety. In a way it's kinda like my face slap Grassie shot. The picture has it's own story to tell.
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My last two were blanks....not quite 12 hour sessions...more like 2 and 3. Both were in venues that had produced multiple captures the week before. The cold here turns the fish off quickly. All but the river will freeze over and then it becomes the countdown for the solstice and ice out next spring.
The blanks I've had this year were the last two sessions so I feel pretty good about that. The scenery never disappoints and Kingfishers ( the good luck omen bird ) are nearly always a bonus.
Thanks for sharing the pics!
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This grassie slapped me good! .... then calmed down for a pose. But I did not trust it until it was back in the water.
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Fishhead, the dictionary doesn't give a size under the definition of fish. Therefore, I recommend you go fishing in the pond you mentioned. Good practice for the spring.
i appreciate the encouragement. I have fished it on occasion. It's a weird mental thing I have about. If you could catch a 10# carp on the first cast of a crust of bread every single time would you? It's like fishing out of a bucket.
Maybe I should rethink it every time I spend hours elsewhere and blank. Anyway this is a pic of it, my office and the Jordan river right behind the office.
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My waters and carp have already shown a marked increase in cooling off. Snow has hit the peaks several times since the first in late August and now the river that rewarded me a couple weeks ago with some nice fish has given me my first blank yesterday.
Three hours and only one light tug but no hookups. Here in Utah the carp catching shuts off like you didn't pay the electric bill. CLICK! good night.... until May or ice out whichever comes first. I might give it one more go this weekend before cleaning the rods and reels for the winter.
There is one small pond in my office park that is full of ten pounders, commons, ghost, muddlers, linear and full scaled mirrors and big goldfish. But they are big headed and lean bodied. So easy to catch on the first cast, I have to be REAL desperate or have my kids with me to even fish there. Most of the time I just stop and toss bread in to feed them. If I blank again, I might be desperate enough to end the season on some fish no matter the quality.
This one is typical of their size and shape.
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Normally, less is better in winter time as the carp slow down their eating habits. I will still use the method feeder and particle baits with a smaller hook bait and short hair rig.
I had gotten away from the hair rig for a while and this summer missed way too many takes. Just got it dialed back in with a rig half as long as before. IMO the shorter hair rig - from hook to weight - has resulted in much better hook up ratios. After watching the Korda underwater videos and seeing the fish eject the longer rigs numerous times during feeding, I went to a 3-4 inch rig and smaller hook. BAM! fish on!
Some of the better than me carpers will chime in.
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Fisherwood - oh I am definitely doing my best to catch them within the law. The bait must be attached to the hook and line. No mention on how big or small the bait can be. I fish for big fish and use BIG baits.
We just got a break this year with the DWR dropping the second pole permit license required to fish two rods. No longer need a second license for the second rod. Great news. I have a good particle and method feeder program working and finally got my hair rig catching sorted thanks to Korda UW videos.
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Thanks, Austin. They are here although some locations are hours away from me.
The state record was caught in 1993 at Lake Powell - 6 hours drive south - 32 pounds.
The Catch and Release was caught in 2012 in the Great Salt Lake Marsh -via boat - 35.5 inches
The Archery Record Carp was shot ( sadly) in 2012 - 33#, 29 inches - in a reservoir an hour north of me. - Probably my best chance for getting into consistent large fish. I hear of accidental catches of large mirrors there. It's a VERY crowded during the high season, very buggy, state park reservoir.
The two biggest challenges for carp anglers in Utah - okay, there's 3....are 1) no use of corn for bait, .....2) no pre-baiting or chumming....and 3) pretty much 99 percent of Utah's anglers HATE carp. The no-corn/no-chumming regs came about due to Trout anglers chumming the snot out of reservoirs with 100# bags of field corn thus killing the trout they wanted to chum up to catch. Trout can't digest the hard cellulose cover on corn. The knuckleheads defeated themselves.
Just makes it more of a challenge and rewarding when I get into the mid-teens and higher captures.
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Incredible session! you had me there with the "30 fish over 20 #'s" until I saw the correction.
Still that's better than I've caught EVER in my state. Utah just doesn't have the bodies of water like that. There are some 20's and maybe 30's but few and far between. that or no one is sharing intel.
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Great session! All good fish IMO. Yes, the ones that got away are sometimes the most memorable. One just has to make lemonade of the memory and that gives hope for a future capture.
That said and it being Halloween and all.
TRICK OR TREAT!
any ole idiot ( that's me ) with Photoshop can turn that 26.6 into a proper 40! Hope you get a few more sessions before winter moves in to stay. And if the picture is offensive rather than the intended stab at humor, please say so and It's gone.
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Outstanding Mirror! Size isn't what counts when you get one as nice as that. Did you get a shot of the flip side?
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Good looking grassies! Gotta be fun to catch!
Oh they definitely are. Day or night, better yet on my kayak. Night Grassies are much more unnerving because of their sometimes raucous, swooshing takes. They do the same in daylight but you can see and anticipate them. This one was 34 inches and 25#.
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Skammer- thank you for your service to our country! We were stationed there in '67.
Chris- congrats on the new gear/kit! Take lots of canned corn, throw half into the river and fish the rest. Set the reels on free spool and clicker or be prepared to watch 'em fly into the drink. Some river carp takes are scary intense, BAM! ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzt! Off they go!
Good luck!
PS- just looked at a map of Nashville. Yep, the TN river is where I'd be. Were I there I would set up shop on the Northside of the river below where Whites Creek dumps in.
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Congrats to all! Looks like a great venue with room to grow some big 'uns. Feed those fish!
Nice to see Commons, Muddlers and Mirrors in the mix.
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Went south to a small spring fed lake with a history of aquatic vegetation issues that sports a population of White Amur Grass Carp or Grassies/Grassers as we call them. They range from about 24 inches up to 40 at least since I have caught a couple that long. Most are between 32” and 38” with the weights averaging mid to high teens and the occasional twenty something pounder.
Got a bit of a late start and still hit traffic...nearly turned around at the conveniently located Cabela’s exit but kept on going.
It’s a 44 mile one way trip so I was hoping with the recent cool temps at night there would still be a chance at locating and capturing maybe three or two of dem skittish rascals.
Got a line in the water by 8pm and a fish on within a half hour. Not bad, especially since the swim I picked had a very pesky and territorial Muskrat parading back and forth in front of me and crossing my line at least 20 times. It finally relented and worked the bank 15 yards down from me.
The first fish felt pretty good and I had switched from one of my shorter kayak rods to a Gloomis 1024, 8’6” foot, fast action, medium power, steelhead/salmon rod. Freelining bread crust was the tactic and this rod was up to the task. The extra two and a half feet of length gave me better accurate casting plus shore line weed clearance when I walked out of the swim to play the fish away from the others feeding in it.
Second fish an hour later - they were wary from the addition of lighted Christmas float decorations of enormous size (barges) recently added all over the lake’s surface - felt like a catfish as I could tell some were moving in and surface feeding on the scraps. The cats make a completely different take on floating bread than grassies and once they move in it’s over unless catfish becomes the target.
Turned out to be a Junior Grassie in the 8 pound and 24 inch range. Reeled him in, nettted, photo’d and called it good. A herd of ducks paddled into the swim and wreaked havoc on everything. The temps dropped down to the low 40s with a mountain breeze chilling the air to brisk and my toesies was cold. Just might be one more Grass Carp Session left in the year before they go into slow mode and the Christmas floats light up the night.
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that is awesome to have that right behind work. nice fish
i know where i would be spending my lunch hours lol
Come to think of it...I did spend my lunch hour there that day. Nothing caught though as I recall most of my bait 'fell' off the hook .... repeatedly. Wink, wink, nod, nod, he said knowingly.
Thanks for the replies.
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Right behind my office is the only river in the Salt Lake valley and it holds some decent carp. Problem is the river is narrow, shallow and mostly featureless and structureless . It flows from Utah Lake - home of 95% biomass being carp - and then flows north into the Great Salt Lake. Behind my office I have a bridge under which is weed free along the banks so it makes for a natural fishing spot.
Today I cast using the method system loaded with birdseed, bread crumb and self made boilie hookbaits. My little e-glass blank kayak rod with an Abu Black Max on top was the combo of choice. This rod is spiral wrapped and fishes like a charm. At least I think so since I built it. I named it Carpalicious.
So within an hour the first take down with a few clicker buzzes of the open spool reel, then zzzzzzzzzzzzztt! And she's off. Took a couple minutes to land and due to the steepness of the riverbank I nearly slid in. Then lifting the fish from the net she flipped into the dirt. Quick wipe for pics and back she goes. 14 # on the scale. I'm happy and ready for more. Next takedown in only thiry minutes. Woohoo! This one was very orange to the previous black and gold colors. A tubby 10 pounder.
Stayed another hour and a half but all was quiet. Saw way too many pesky muskrats in my swim and a few bubbling feeders on the margins. Packed up and headed home. With a grin!
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Here's my 2 cents. If the lake you're fishing is the one in your avatar pic, then it looks plenty carpy. And little carp grow up into big ones.
Two things i would try and one was hinted at above.
Fish at night. Try a pre- bait session with emphasis on the baiting. Use a spod or sling shot to get some bait fanned out in your swim. Fish it lite then give it several hours break. Bait it up again and leave. Come back at dusk and set up camp.
Another approach is just start conditioning the general population with a buffet line mess hall. By that I mean buy some or even just one bag of Purina Catfish chow or other similar 25 or 50 # bag of pellets and broadcast them over a nice fishy looking spot for a few days or every other afternoon for a week. Then plan for a nice long session and see what happens.
One mistake many including me freqently make is playing or fighting their hooked fish in and into their baited swim. Big No-No. This will wreck a swim and kill the bite. Hook up, walk way left or right and land your fish. Photo opp. Then release in the same spot. Not near the swim. Makes a big difference and the big boys and girls will be less wary which may be happeing there. The big ones are hanging back until the commotion is over then muscle in to clean up any leftovers when it's quiet.
Okay....maybe more than 2 cents worth...keep the change!
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+1 what carpskunker said. Carp make the water murky with their feeding habits. Since your state allows corn for bait, I would stick with it. Skip the garbanzo beans. Just open a can or two and toss half of what you open into the area you plan to fish. When you start catching, set the hook on the fish and walk left or right a decent amount of yards....like 10 to 20 or more and play the fish to your net there out of and away from your swim. Release and walk back to your swim to cast again. This technique works to keep the hooked carp from spooking and alerting the interested feeders. I almost always have to wait the " obligatory" first hour before the catching starts in my waters. No corn allowed in Utah. Use VERY good quality hooks like Owner or equal. Good luck.
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Being from NC and not UT, it was a big let down to move here from a corn as bait state to a corn is illegal bait state. All because some knuckle heads baited trout via chumming hundreds of pounds of field corn into the reservoirs. DWR sees a fish kill and zips open dead floating trout to find them stuffed with undigestable to trout field corn. O.....K......no more corn nor chumming for anglers in Utah.
The grey area of pack bait isn't really all that gray. I see where it says the bait must be on the hook and line. Nothing about the size of the bait nor if it happens to fall off when casting or fishing.
BTW..carp are bowshot galore here and dumped on the bank and into trash bins. Or chopped into chunks as the " best" catfish bait. Talk about upside down. And then there's the guy getting paid million$ of our tax dollars to empty Utah lake of carp. At the end of his first 5million dollar contract he says he's caught up to the reproductive rate of the carp in the lake.
Grrrrr......off the rant box now.
Gotta go boil some birdseed. DWR agents have asked me what I catch carp on and I tell them bread dough and bird seed. No problems. And I will toss a cannonball out there to them. When it hits everyone looks with that " WTH was he tossing ? " look.
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Yep, still here, been a looooong while since i posted. Not so long since I last caught a carp. Only 4 days. Too bad I missed the southern Utah carpers's request.
Good carp spots in Utah? EVERYWHERE!
Utah lake- 90% + of the biomass is carp. If you fell in the lake you would land on a carp.
Bear Lake up north - full of muddlers. Have caught tons off my kayak there. Bear river - big carp. Bountiful Pond- plenty of 20's.
Lake Powell - loaded with plenty of big ones.
Flaming Gorge- guided carp fishing, big 20's plus.
Jordan river- full of carp. Caught a big fattie outta there last November.
All the reservoirs around Salt Lake have carp. Starvation holds the record. Deer creek - big uns. Willard bay - big mirrors. Lots of other spots. Search urban fisheries Utah.
Good luck
Steve
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That my friends is the face ( mr fitzz) I make.....EVERY time I blank!
You can tell this fish is a WHOPPER because it is even bigger than my camera would take a picture of. It was SO BIG it went right off the frame. No kidding!
Nor did I resort to that timeless classic tactic of "long arming" the fish like some folks do who can't catch a WHOPPER.
If I can't catch a big carp I certainly know how to make 'em BIGGER!
This one must have weighed more than 40 - uhh, 50 something I MEAN 60.....no 63 pounds ...I mean KILOS.......Yea! 67 Kilos! Yea that's right...new personal best.... on 6 pound test and bread crust. yea, that's what I'm talkin'bout!
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congrats on the grassie or grasser as some say! If you can chum they'll find you and your hookbait. If not, like here in Utah, I sight fish for them until dark, then blind cast straight out. They have excellent vision and my personal experience is they ARE line AND hook shy. I've caught dozens and dozens over the last two seasons and pay attention to all the aspects of what I do right and wrong.
Some other more experienced anglers may chime in with their opinions, too.
What Chakram said - use a bigger hook. I do - and owner or gamakatsu 2x strong hidden well in my offerings of sourdough bread which I freeline cast with an ultralight rig and 6 pound test. My best sizes this year are one meter long and up to 18 or so pounds. See the Southwest section for details of my grass carp escapades. Once the bite is on for me it is non-stop HOT!!! Feed the ducks a lot! toss out loads of bread and watch for the grassies to come in. At night I don't see them but hold my line or watch it tighten up the slack. Most of my hooksets are just right with very very few swallowed hooks. Maybe 2-3 out of 40 fish. Only had a couple of break offs. That should tell you their fight is TOTALLY different - at least for the size I'm getting and there is only ONE other place in my state where they are legally stocked 6 hours away in Lake Powell.
Like was said earlier - they may hit hard and run...then seem to give up and let themselves be steered around until they see the net, you or shallow water....then prepare to get wet. On land I now gently cover every single ones eyes with my free hand while they're the bank getting unhooked. If upright, they'll shimmy HARD, if left with eyes uncovered they get the flip flops HARD. Known to beat themselves and the angler up during photo ops! Don't ask me how I know this.
hope you catch many more and increase your hookup rate. I prefer floating bait as they seem to be topwater cruisers. Spook easily, too.
HTH,
Steve
A few fall carp
in Mid Atlantic
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Great captures! Thanks for sharing.