Carp vs Carp

last saturday, i met this retired gentleman while fishing a reservoir about 25 minutes from home.  he showed me a lure that he makes from scratch (hook, weight and all) for catching panfish.  using 1 lb pound test line, he cast into the water, and hooked up with a bluegill instantaneously.  needless to say, i was impressed.

since he lived in the immediate area, he told me of a couple of public ponds nearby that held incredible amounts of carp and was fairly open, making it easier to fly cast.  i was an eager beaver to try out the ponds, so i went out yesterday.

and i did find carp.  loads of them.  but i didn't catch a single one in 4 hours.   i couldn't find out what they were eating!  they would come up top, stick their backs out of the water and wiggle around, or...they would stick their mouths up and out of the water, sucking in air or whatever.  i tried dry flies, san juan worms, egg flies, crawfish imitations, damselfly imitations, etc...and i couldn't even get their attention.  the problem was that they weren't moving at all.  if i cast 2+ feet away from them, they wouldn't notice the fly, and if i cast less than 2 feet away, they would spook.  what was i doing wrong?  i think i'm going to review Mr. P's Lessons From the Carp Lodge.  maybe they just weren't interested in eating.

but i got to thinking...maybe pond/public carp are completely different (and much harder to catch) than river/wild carp.  so far, i have not caught a public pond carp, because they just won't pursue my fly presentations.  is the lack of food competition and predators keeping them from being aggressive, unlike river/wild carp?

lastly, i saw one thing i have never seen before, and was able to catch it on my iphone video.  it was 4-6 baby carp, huddled together, slurping the air.  they didn't really spook, and they weren't eating.  i drifted a dry fly right over their mouths, and nothing happened.  anybody else seen this behavior?

8/24/12 update:  turns out these carp are 'clooping' and they are not 'babies'.  they are probably between 4-7 lbs.  since i can't identify what they are eating up top, most likely they are midges.

The 5 That Got Away

on saturday, i was in nassau county again to visit the in-laws.  i decided that i wanted to check out a new pond, one known for its pickerel and bass.  there are also rumors of very large carp which i had to go verify myself.

while this pond was larger and more accessible than the other ponds i frequent, most of the fish i spotted were panfish and bass, and also very very small.  i was able to spy one very large carp from a distance, and as i got closer to make a cast, it disappeared into the depths, nary to return.  

after a couple of hours scouting the pond, i cut my losses and headed to the nearby pond where i know exactly where the carp will be hanging out.  i've mentioned how hard it is to cast here, with limited access and so much weeds/plants in the water.  in about two hours, i made about 20 casts, but only 5 that had any potential.  

here is one pic where the carp refused my fly and decided to scram.  he's slightly lower and to the right than the center of the pic.  the pic below is of an aggressive frog that was attacking my fly line. (can anybody identify the type?)   i noticed it when there was some splashing at my feet, and the frog was going crazy trying to bite my fly line!  little bugger...he ruined a good opportunity.  sheesh.

Nervous Water

i was lucky this past weekend to get out and go fishing three times. on friday, i made a last minute decision to catch the evening tide and try to line some porgy for dinner. i launched the kayak 5 minutes from my house at around 4:45 PM, which was about 1.75 hours before high tide. the water temperatures were in the low 70s (a bit too hot) and the wind was nonexistent.  failing at finding any scup, i started paddling around the harbor.

per usual, there was bunker everywhere.

 

imagine there to be about 20 of these pods, all around the boat moorings.  for the most part, there were no bass or blues working them.  they seemed to be so content, just flipping about, slowly moving from one area to another.  with the kayak, i can get extremely close to these schools, and i can see the hundreds of adult bunker just circling around.

knowing that live bait was my best bet to catch  something, i snagged a bunker, put it on a circle hook and left the pole in my flush mount rod holder.  i then alternated between flies and lures, casting around the edges of the pods to see if anything would take.

unfortunately, nada.

my thought was that it was just too hot for any action.  no worries, though.  this just means that september, when the water has cooled down, is going to be craaaaaazzzzyy!

XXA

Oracles

in antiquity, there were oracles who prophesied the future, divined by the gods.  later, in the 1500s, there was Nostradamus.  today, there are meteorologists who prophesize based on science. isn't it amazing how often meteorologists get it wrong?  if there is one thing i have learned in my career/life, it's that past performance is not indicative of future results.

it's amazing how much we anglers depend on the weather.  we study, we prepare, we make journal entries, all in the hope that we can decipher not only when to go fishing, but how the weather helps or hurts our success.

my plan was to go out fishing on the yak by 4:30 AM this past saturday.  the sunrises at around 5:45, so it gave me about an hour of fishing in the dark.  there is so much bunker around, and with the recent cooler temperatures, i thought it would be ideal setup for catching some stripers.

i check weather.com and wunderground.com for weather daily (it's amazing how they differ sometimes).  for saturday morning, it predicted a 20% chance of rain all day, and wind of around 6 mph out of east.

i woke up around 3:15 AM, did my 'business', packed up and left around 4:00.  i arrived at the launch site, and was prepared to launch when i noticed a stiff breeze.  i ignored it, hopped in the kayak, and started paddling, i then noticed all the noise.  all the boats that were docked at their slips were rocking about and occasionally bumping into the sides of their slips.  i thought that it was pretty weird, because 6 mph is essentially no wind.  each time i've gone out in similar wind situations, the water has been like glass.  i checked my weather apps again, and there had been no change from the night before.  wind around 7 mph.

as i paddled out of the protected area into open water, i saw tiny little whitecaps.  what the whaaa?  i decided to check the western long island sound weather buoy for wind data.  the wind was 17 mph with gusts up to 22 mph. okay, that made so much more sense.

i thought about it for a few minutes, and decided to paddle back to the car.  it wasn't worth it to fish in that scenario.  i try not to kayak in winds greater than 15 mph because paddling the freedomhawk in that kind of wind is a chore, and setting up a good drift is next to impossible.  i also convinced myself that the bait would be pushed down a bit, so i wouldn't be able to find them.

since i was up so early, i ended up going to a local park on the water, and fishing off a point.  i caught one snapper blue (didn't take a picture) on a kastmaster, had another one chase down my skitter pop (amazing that i didn't hook up there), and another one bite off the tail of my storm wildeye shad pearl.

anyways, on the leeward side of the point, there were a bunch of silversides.  every time a twig or something floated by, they would hurdle it as if it were fun.  never seen that before.

it's my son's first birthday party this weekend.  i've been crazy preparing for it.  hopefully i  can get out on the kayak soon since i've heard there are some bruiser blues out there.

until then, stay salty. XXA