Thread: Pushing the envelope...

Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

Carp and sucker aren't my idea of game fish ​ ...

In the last ten or fifteen years, fly fishing for carp has taken off like a rocket. There are websites devoted to it, with special flies and fly lines devoted to it. The fly guys figured out that carp are awesome. One example:

Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

I found that the info I provided on one coarse fish Brit site went unnoticed ...

That's the least surprising thing I've read all day.

Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

I found that the info I provided on one coarse fish Brit site went unnoticed so I stopped posting. Carp and sucker aren't my idea of game fish ​and live bait is big.

Course fishing i just learned not too long ago searching UK perch rigs and all. Carp I caught them by accident years ago in public pond that took a plastic with a jig head of my own making. I didn't think carp eat plastic but then they eat anything really..lol. Long story short after that incident i realized i can't be choosy since they only come in size that can strip lines off a 2000 size reel so i target them from time to time if the panfish is slow biting with UL and 1000 size reel:]

Originally Posted by deathb4disco

In the last ten or fifteen years, fly fishing for carp has taken off like a rocket. There are websites devoted to it, with special flies and fly lines devoted to it. The fly guys figured out that carp are awesome. One example:









That's the least surprising thing I've read all day.

Think of them as “the poor man’s tarpon” . LOL
Bob

I have caught tidal river carp on 3/4 oz Hopkins Spoons up to 15 lbs. My partner and I caught a dozen from a school wishing they were the stripers we went there to fish for. Any fish that large does give a good fight as does large catfish - my favorite non-rough/ non-game fish, but it's the type of fight that has me preferring to catch anything but carp, buffalo or drum. Even a large sucker gives a better fight.

Lots of members at Bassresource hates carp for various reasons with 1 of them being they wasted so much time trying to bring one up without cutting line therefore risk loosing expensive lures in the process ( nuisance that’s what they are). And then theres those also hate them because fishing for carp is not glamorous! If we honest about ourselves we all want to look like the next Bill Dance or Kevin Dam of the world when out and about throwing bueatiful lures on deck a $50k boat but reality wise most of us just starting out bank fishing and ended there. On that note I would never specifically fish for carp...the big one anyway. Any of you ever see the equipment used by the carp purists? Their insane...12, 15 foot long poles, electronic alert detection system, top end rear drag reel, dough ball and the list goes on! I’m lucky enough where I am at the smaller carps (under 15”) act like panfish and feed among them above the lake bed so all I need is my usual FlyNfloat rig with small jigs tip with worm or bread ball and voila! And they do feel like “poor man Tarpon” sometimes ..lol


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My biggest carp about carp is getting the dang hook out of its slippery leathery mouth. Other species you can hold the jaw with two fingers and if need be use jaw clamps and pliers. But try holding a 10 lb carp flopping around in a canoe while trying to get a hold of a treble hook with two barbs embedded in its extended mouth, seemingly minus a jaw! Dangerous to say the least as well as painful if scratched. Been there done that. Nothing against anyone who loves to fish for them or any species, just not this angler.

Let me expand on the fight: powerful but boring. Big sunfish give a better fight going sideways and then in circles making me think I have a much bigger fish on whereas carp dive down, then you pull them up and then down then up then down then up....yawn. If I had a power winch I'd pull them straight out of the water so I could fish for something else - anything else!

Originally Posted by LVSpinfisher1

And then theres those also hate them because fishing for carp is not glamorous!

This ^^^^

The bass guys can look down their noses at carp all they want. They don't realize that the trout guys look down their noses at them.

Originally Posted by LVSpinfisher1

Any of you ever see the equipment used by the carp purists? Their insane...12, 15 foot long poles, electronic alert detection system, top end rear drag reel, dough ball and the list goes on! I’m lucky enough where I am at the smaller carps (under 15”) act like panfish and feed among them above the lake bed so all I need is my usual FlyNfloat rig with small jigs tip with worm or bread ball and voila! And they do feel like “poor man Tarpon” sometimes ..lol

The long rods are used because they're almost always fishing from the bank and frequently cast 60-100 yards with 4-6 oz weights. The long rods help this. Many hard-core carp guys will fish 3-4 days in a row and sleep next to their rods. That's why they use the electronic bite alarms. I mostly float fish for carp, so stuff like that is not needed.

There are certain people who think the fish they target is better than all the other fish. From my experience this is usually the bass fishermen. They hate carp for the reasons mentioned above, but will also throw bowfin, gar, and pickerel on the bank. Their rationale? They compete with bass for food and eat juvenile bass. Every time I read that I can't help but think how ridiculous and closed minded that opinion is. I always flip it on them and tell them I'm a bowfin fisherman and kill every bass I catch so there could be more bowfin. Ironically they usually seem to call me some sort of name for doing so, but the point goes over their heads. They think their opinion about bass is all that should matter.

I'm a multispecies fisherman before anything else. There isn't a fish out there that I don't respect. That's probably why I like this forum. Sure it's dedicated to crappie and panfish, but the term "panfishing" is so diverse.