[Lake Washington]

here’s a few lake Washington carp from summer ‘18. I was living on the lake at the time and as sorter stated pre baiting was super important, all caught on sweet corn or a friend of mines homemade pumpkin spice boilies. I’ve got more pics on Insta wa_carp_angler. All of these where caught in about 15-20 feet of water where a weed covered flat sloped off into rocky gravel bottom.

[Deep lake carp tactics?]

This lake is insane! I caught my new PB today, 20.8 lbs and my neighbor caught one that was 23lbs on the dot. These fish have never been fished or chummed for I don’t think because as long as we consistently are throwing a few handfuls of packbait in every couple hours they’re around, we both caught a few 8-10lbers today besides the 20’s. 

Im completely addicted to carp 

[Deep lake carp tactics?]

Today was amazing! Landed 5 carp in total, 2 at 10+lbs, 2 in the 5-7lb range and a little 1-2lber to end the night. Kev got home and I was hanging out having a beer while he made a few casts, it was already really dark out and all of the sudden his drag starts screaming! 5 minutes later and I was netting a GORGEOUS 10+lb mirror for him! we didn’t even know they were in here as we’ve only seen commons, needless to say I’ve already got a big bag of pack bait mixed up and tomorrow should be rather eventful. Follow the adventure at @wa_carp_angler on instagram at least till I figure out a good way to resize my pics and then I’ll post them here also

[Deep lake carp tactics?]

I’ve got some good news!!!!

As I said above I started baiting the area with corn/oats/strawberry packbait Thursday and last night when I got home from work I went down and tossed another 4-5 big balls of packbait into the area then went up to grab all my gear, when I was coming back down my neighbor and fishing partner Kevin was tying up a hair rig and said he’d seen a big one roll over the bait area.

2 hours later and we had one in the net and each got 1-2 runs that we missed or that pulled the hooks in the weeds.

once I can size down the pic I’ll post but Kevin got a BEAUTIFUL little 4-5lb common! Which is a young in because I’ve seen ones easily doubling his size 

time to get a big landing net, unhooking mat, and a cradle and scale. 

Also looking at getting the Vader 3rod combo with net from BCT anybody use those rods and reels before?

I think we’re both hooked on carp and you’ll be seeing a lot of carpy content coming from me in the near future

[indingenous seed baits]

Hello carp-it! I'm up in north Seattle area and havent for a carp myself yet (hopefully that will change soon) but a few years back when floating a Washington river for smallmouth bass we came across a big bank of blackberries which a large school of carp munching on top, after learning about their love of mulberries I can only assume they were enjoying the ripe blackberries that dropped into the water, makes me wonder if there's spots like that on some of the local lakes.  As philaroman said though Those iris's are rather toxic (my moms a plant nerd and I learned that as a youngin) so is question if the carp ingest them.

[Deep lake carp tactics?]

6 hours ago, Dale Holmes said:

I have fished lots of big impoundments in the West. I have always found that a baiting campaign was essential to carpin success. In your case, you might experiment a bit with different particles to find something the perch won't eat. Almost any animal food will probably do for chumming the carp. Stroll down the aisles at any feed store (Tractor Supply, for example) and just buy a few bags of pig pellets, range cubes, or, anything that sinks in water, and try it.  

A good article to read is "The Baiting Pyramid" by Mike Wison. You can find it here: https://barbel.co.uk/site/articles/baitingpyramid/baitingpyramid.htm

Note the following in  Washington Sport Fishing Rules: Effective July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017:

"It is unlawful to chum, broadcast, feed, or distribute into freshwater any bait or other substance capable of attracting fish unless specifically authorized in Special Rules."

 

Thanks Dale! 

Thankfully I've been reading the WDFW fishing regulations word for word almost every year since I was  12 or so and I live on Lake Washington which, under the "special rules" states that chumming is allowed :) I appreciate the concern though ??

i went out today and tossed a few handfuls of strawberry/oat/corn pack bait I made before my phone decided to fall in the lake (second phone I've donated to the depths in 2 weeks....) I'll continue tossing a few handfuls in the same general area every day for the next 3-4 days and see what happens. The weathers been very warm and sunny but looks like that's going to shift this weekend to more of the normal rainy and grey WA weather I'm used too, hopefully that doesn't out too much of a damper on the carp

[Deep lake carp tactics?]

Awesome! Thank you for the quick reply, I think I’m going to do a combo of manually weed raking and just massively baiting the area. Hopefully in the next month or 2 before winter really sets in I can drum up some activity! Seen some gorgeous commons lately including one with a very long almost koi like tail.

 

[Deep lake carp tactics?]

Hello!

ive lurked on the forums for a long time and recently moved to a place where I have dock access out my back door to a VERY large lake, 22 miles long and a surface area of around 21,000 acres! The end of my dock is around 10-12 feet deep and a 35-40ft cast puts me around 25-30ft deep with a small weed/gravel bottom, there are lots of freshwater clams, crawfish and insects in the lake. I’ve seen carp in the 15+lb range cruising by all the time but always on the move never feeding and rarely slowly cruising.

theres an absurd amount of perch in the lake and the one time I chummed with corn I caught perch that were pooping corn the next day or 2 so not sure how quickly the carp would even key in with so much perch activity 

With all of this information, and with the fact that there’s still very heavy weed growth anywhere OTHER then that 25-40ft cast out from the end of the dock, what would be your plan of attack? Start chumming heavily at that range? Say screw it and start somewhere shallower or where carp are seen feeding rather than cruising? Bait selection? Pack baits?

obviously getting out there and trying is going to be the best option but figured I would see what others do in deep weedy lake situations and what the best options for getting carp to start frequenting an area instead of cruising by is!

Thanks guys! (Sorry for the super long post)

p.s. it’s Lake Washington up in Washington state. If anyone’s local and would be willing to help out a noob let me know!