How do I catch Carp?

[jerkbait]

I have a small stream maybe 5-6 feet deep and murky, full of big carp. How would be the easiest way to catch these for a fight, what bait and do they prefer a rocky bottom or a silt bottom? I know I've seen them frequent both areas.

[fishohio614]

Usually how I catch them where I live is on corn. I take a can of corn and I dump it into a little plastic container, then pour a little vanilla in there. I use a smaller sized treble hook with a small split shot and thread a couple pieces of corn on each hook. Then before I start fishing I will throw a handful of corn in as chum and cast my bait in the area where I threw the corn, then wait. I have caught plenty of carp using this technique before but there are many other ways out there, this is just an idea. Hope this helps.

Ben

[fishohio614]

Also, in my experience, where I catch them, they prefer a more silty bottom.

[keesvanderlaak]

Jerkbait, PM me your adres, I will send you some custom made carp leaders.
I make em myself!

[turttle]

I can't get away from the bloody things. They go for any bait I put in the water. Mainly worms and burdy grubs. It doesn't matter where rocky or silt. Dam thieves

[fishohio614]

If you really have a problem catching them on hook and line, you could always get into bowfishing. Talk about addicting and fun.

[keesvanderlaak]

Jun 24, 2011 6:35:07 GMT -4 turttle said:

I can't get away from the bloody things. They go for any bait I put in the water. Mainly worms and burdy grubs. It doesn't matter where rocky or silt. Dam thieves

I have never in my life seen a carp going for grubs.

Only once seen one hitting on a lure, just because he was irritated by it.

[walter]

i hooked many of them on small spinners, minnows and grubs, usually when fishing for chubs. also, i lost most of them due to inadequate tackle (since my hooks are barbless, if i'm on a light tackle and can't fight, i just leave slack line and the fish will easily spit the lure, treble hooks don't work well for carps)

i noticed a preference for white lures. white grubs or #1 spinners are among the top

edit: btw, it's really easier to catch them on corn (or worms)

[keesvanderlaak]

Walter, using corn is very good for carp! stick em on a hair leader with mounted lead rig and way to go!

Like I said before, I am willing to send jerkbait some samples of high end handmade rigs.

[ash]

we fish for them quite a bit in the uk. the best rig is a hair rig with a short hooklength and 2.5 oz lead. the carp feed by sucking the bait into their mouths, when they try and spit out your rig the hook catches hold and the combination of the short hooklength and heavy lead mean that the fish hook themselves. try a hair rig with corn or luncheon meat and you should catch a few. they also like bread crust freelined on the water surface. hope you catch a few

[keesvanderlaak]

Sept 9, 2011 8:44:19 GMT -4 @ash said:

we fish for them quite a bit in the uk. the best rig is a hair rig with a short hooklength and 2.5 oz lead. the carp feed by sucking the bait into their mouths, when they try and spit out your rig the hook catches hold and the combination of the short hooklength and heavy lead mean that the fish hook themselves. try a hair rig with corn or luncheon meat and you should catch a few. they also like bread crust freelined on the water surface. hope you catch a few

Exactly!!

I am going to fish for carp the next weekend! all weekend long!
I am using the same method! using pop-up boilies and corn in combination of stickmix, pellets. chickpea and crushed boilies in a PVA bag.

For hooklink I am using 15 LB Kryston Merlin, stiffen it up with rubber glue and leave one inch clean to the hook.
Longshank widegape non reflective hook, weed coloured 1.4 Korda heatshrink.
Blowback rig using Korda O ring (non reflective)

But one different thing is that I don't use lead heavyer then 2 oz.. is more then enough.. in my experience is that any heavyer you are damaging the fish when he is hooking itself..
This is also the reason I refuse to fish with heavyer rods then 2,5 LB
the trend now is 2 3/4 LB and heavyer.

this also means that it is hard to find a new rod because all that is sold now are 2 3/4.

I like using lighter rods too! 2 LB or even lighter when freeling.

[happyshad]

Sept 4, 2012 8:53:10 GMT -4 keesvanderlaak said:

Sept 9, 2011 8:44:19 GMT -4 @ash said:

we fish for them quite a bit in the uk. the best rig is a hair rig with a short hooklength and 2.5 oz lead. the carp feed by sucking the bait into their mouths, when they try and spit out your rig the hook catches hold and the combination of the short hooklength and heavy lead mean that the fish hook themselves. try a hair rig with corn or luncheon meat and you should catch a few. they also like bread crust freelined on the water surface. hope you catch a few

Exactly!!

I am going to fish for carp the next weekend! all weekend long!
I am using the same method! using pop-up boilies and corn in combination of stickmix, pellets. chickpea and crushed boilies in a PVA bag.

For hooklink I am using 15 LB Kryston Merlin, stiffen it up with rubber glue and leave one inch clean to the hook.
Longshank widegape non reflective hook, weed coloured 1.4 Korda heatshrink.
Blowback rig using Korda O ring (non reflective)

But one different thing is that I don't use lead heavyer then 2 oz.. is more then enough.. in my experience is that any heavyer you are damaging the fish when he is hooking itself..
This is also the reason I refuse to fish with heavyer rods then 2,5 LB
the trend now is 2 3/4 LB and heavyer.

this also means that it is hard to find a new rod because all that is sold now are 2 3/4.

I like using lighter rods too! 2 LB or even lighter when freeling.

That is what is amazingly different between North America and Europe - is carp fishing.

I catch them by accident when pursuing other species - I've had them hit crankbaits (Once caught one well over 20 pounds trolling a Rapala Husky Jerk DHJ 12 Gold - put her in the livewell to get a picture with later and it puked up crawdads and zebra muscles - plugged my pump - won't do that again)

I've caught them on everything imaginable - but I'm sure it is diferent from Europe in the sense that they are so intensely fished for - that they might be prone to eat only certain baits. It is a sport that has not taken off much here in North America.

The detail on how you Europeans catch them is fascinating - thanks for the descriptions!

[Fishooked]

There are tons of bait recipes online - we used to always make ours out of cornmeal and add a ton of vanilla extract & sugar to it.

Anything that was super sweet & fragrant for the carp to sniff out usually does the trick.

[keesvanderlaak]

For summertime (when water is warm) the use of sweet baits are prefered.
When the water is cold you could wind up catching nothing. I mostly use squid and fishmeal smelling baits. awful smell but does the trick.
Another breaktru in catching carp is the way you present the bait, you could use pop-up technique to adhance bites.
Then again, these carps are amazingly smart so different hooklinks can helpout when fish is only tasting your bait and not hooking itself.

I'll be tying a custom longshank hybrid long-D blowback rig with a very short hooklink today. especially for pop-up situations when carp dressage the bait, knowing what is going on.
I'll post some pics as I am going this afternoon.

Changing shapes:
If they are mostly caught on ball shaped baits, you could find your self catching less and less and less.
This is because they are starting te reconize the bait as being a danger to them.
Changing the bait into a kubic shape or rectangulair or even cylindric can be a breaktru.

[keesvanderlaak]

Ok here we go!

Tying a loop and mount it on a micro O ring (Korda) non-reflective aprox 25mm:



Cut off all access material:


Selecting the right hook:


Getting a piece of suffix memory free mono:



Ty it on the end of the hook, and then Ty the main hooklink to the hook:



Slide on a piece of Korda Shrinkwrap 1.6mm in Weed color:


After heatshrink sliding on the O ring:


Wrap around the Sufix through the eye of the hook:


Cut it off and use a lighter to melt a ball on the end of the sufix, now it won’t go back through the eye of the hook (be carefull not to damage the main hooklink):



Now add another piece of the Korda Shrinkwrap to the hook, make shure it is cut with an angle with the long and extending on the hookback-end, this is for correct turning off the hook (this is what is making the difference between catching and losing a lot of fish)



Shrink it! (don’t use a lighter to shrink this!!, you will damage the main hooklink! USE STEAM!)


Then a swivel to the other end:



I like em short, 15 cm (6 inch)



By using a boilie-needle mounting a boilie (in this case a Martin SB White Chocolate 20mm)
Stopper by Korda (white)



With some shot it is in the water like this, don’t use to much shot (it is most perfect when carp can pick it up using minimum of force)

I am using shot here, I normaly use Leadputy wich is better.
Shot is reflective, could spook carp. So when I use shot then I use a permanent marker to camouflage it a bit.

Here you can see how it is standing up. This is a typical pop-up situation.
The Sufix D will make shure that when an anxious carp is spitting out the bait, he is not tilting the hook when it is going out of the mouth but in fact taking the hook out with the point aiming at the lip of the fish.
When it hooks, the carp will spook and swim of.
At this point he is stretching the 6 inch of hooklink and the weight of the FOX inline 2 2/4 Oz lead will set the hook and you’re up!

[happyshad]

Kees - That is Kick Ass! Thanks for taking the time and the detail to show that! I am thoroughly impressed!

[keesvanderlaak]

Thanks Happyshad!

I'll be using this rig the very first carpsession! when I manage to hook a nice big carp, I will post a photo!!

[keesvanderlaak]

here you can see clearly that if the carp suspects anything he is spitting it out, and when he does, all comes out. this is why I made the D with suffix so the boilie wil slide forward and making the hook still going for the flesh.
It is clear that if this is not working right, you could end up waiting all day and not knowing that you bait has been picked up every 5 minutes.



I have study'd theyr behaviour for years and noticed that, when they are feeding in groups, they get less anxious.
When the amount of available vorage is getting to small for all to feed on they envy each other.

What I learned from this is that I need to use less feeding bait on a spot.
I used to throw a lot of bait in the water to atract them but now I am using less extra bait, I am catching more fish because they get less carefull.

Here a great clip on using pop-up with pellets in a PVA mesh!!