Went out to a local waterway between two lakes last night. This waterway has a slight current and white sand bottoms, so fish are very easy to spot. But last night I saw something I haven’t seen before there. Within a 100ft section I saw two pods of 15-20 carp all feeding on the surface. Imagine like 10 at a time with there mouths completely out of the water. It was weird to watch. I’m wondering what people might think that they were feeding on. I was fishing panfish earlier so I just had a foam spider on, and not suprisingly they weren’t interested in that. I know they eat seeds from trees at certain times of the year, but I don’t know if that is what they were eating. Any thoughts or ideas would be very helpful. Thanks
Zach Z,
Sometimes in the early spring around here they do the same thing. Sometimes I think (but danged sure could be wrong!) it is associated with spawning and they are often danged challenging (frustrating?) when that is on their mind…unless you enjoy the smell of skunk.
…lee s.
Hi Zach,
Welcome to the site. Hope you pull up a chair and stay around for a while.
I think what you saw was a bunch of fish laughing at you and all the others before you who tried to catch them. They had to get their lips out of the water to make sure you could see them laugh.
I guess it’s not what was going on here but I have seen grass eating carp doing the same thing. After grass has been mowed along the lake and the clippings blown into the lake I have seen the carp surface feeding the grass blades just like trout slurping Mayfly duns.
yup, yup, and yup (especially Jed’s laughing part). I forgot about the grass fly too …
Anyhow - around here, the carp head to spawn at water temps around 60-65 deg F. When you see the carp porposing (not taking food or splashing) they are noted to be warming up to one another Quite the thing to watch (and quite frustrating too).
Hit the river last nite by home - someone had made mention of getting stuck in mud somewhere in here in the past couple days - thanks for the reminder - took wading stick to break the suction.
Anyhow - thought it’d be cats, but turned out to be carp - some were surface feeding on elm seeds and cottonwood seeds. As I didn’t have any flies to suit with me, best that would work was a personally derrived kitty pattern (quite the morphed clouser / muddler / hairwing / … fly). Darker patterns (large or small) just weren’t working - but larger lighter (white) patterns were. They’re very light on the take - lots of hook-ups, nothing landed.
It was the 1st time working this section of the river … won’t be the last
Zach - what set-up are you using ?
I’m tossing around a 9ft 9wt Fenwick, floating line and about a 7ft leader, went to 20lb tippet last nite (cats were target). Weights on leader adjusted as required.
I have an 8 wt st croix legend ulta that I usually use when targeting the carp… But on that night I only had my 5wt St Croix Avid that I using fishing for Bluegills and Bass. The carp at this park are for the most part smaller carp than I have seen elsewhere. I would estimate that the average size is 5#'s ish.
i have yet to catch one on the surface, but a lot of the carp out here feed on midges when they are hatching. i’ve also seen them chow down on cottonwood seeds…quite the sight!
I’ve yet to hear of someone catching a carp on the surface. The concensus around here is that they are cleaning their gills by breaching the surface. I’ve seen it a lot over the years and have given up catching them on the surface.
There is a local pond where we have pestered carp on the surface. This pond has an abundance of people feeding bread to the ducks. Clipped white deerhair works well, as does a piece of styrofoam glued to a hook.
…lee s.
carp do feed on the surface regularly, but when they are leaping from the water i think it is spawning behavior, or just because they don’t have middle fingers. when they feed up top it is pretty apparent…if the cottonwood seeds are on the water you’ll see tons of mouths just vaccuming that stuff down…
[url=http://carponthefly.blogspot.com/:42cb7]http://carponthefly.blogspot.com/[/url:42cb7]
This one on gear at nite by a local fellow over the weekend - however … same area we’re tossing flies. This guy tickled 27lbs.
5wt … hmmms, not a good idea here
thing about carp surface feeding on cotton or elm seeds - they are so danged good at it - it is very hard to see the takes. A 24" brown’s finesse has nothing on the carp.
[This message has been edited by darrell (edited 14 June 2006).]
i’ve caught 4 fish this year over 20lbs, and a 20 lb carp on the fly is no joke. i mostly fish a 10 ft 6wt, but i should go up to a 7 or 8 wt for the bigger fish. i do use mainly 4x tippet as the fish are pretty spooky, but with all the recent weed growth i am going to 3x now…they break the 4x just by running into all the weeds.
Hate to break it to you guys, but carp are NOT LEADER SHY.
Use whatever tippet allows you to make a good delivery.
I have fished with guys when they’ve been using 30 pound mono and/or 65 pound braid to catch the fish on top with bread, bagels, etc…
I personally use 8-12# test to carp fish with. The only reason I don’t go heavier is I’m usually fishing on the bottom, where carp spend 99.9% of their time eating, and, heavier tippets don’t let my flies sink fast enough… get the flies heavier to compensate, and they splash too loudly on entry.
some carp are absolutely leader shy. when fishing with bread and other bait i’m sure the scent will get them to strike, but there are plenty of carp out there that are leader shy. some of the water i fish the fish are spooky enough to require 4x…3x or bigger and you won’t get 1/2 the number of takes. i do use 2x often on other pieces of water, but i have no doubt that there are locations where 4x is the way to go if you are fishing an artificial without any scent. that might not be the case everywhere, but it applies where i fish.
[url=http://carponthefly.blogspot.com/:8e891]http://carponthefly.blogspot.com/[/url:8e891]
![http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e381/mikefisher99/Fishing2006027.jpg[/url:35da9]](http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e381/mikefisher99/Fishing2006027.jpg%5B/url:35da9%5D){kind=link}