My Nemesis The Grass Carp

This story starts quite a few years ago when we had just moved in a new neighborhood. I had my son with autism with me as we fished for bluegills at a local pond. At the time he was still using sign language and hardly talked at all. He might say maybe cookie or juice. So we were sitting there when he stands up points and says SHARK! First I was shocked that he spoke and second I was shocked at what I saw. There was this dorsal fin out of the water and three feet behind that a tail!!!! That means there was about three more feet to the head of the beast. This really got my attention and started my quest to fair hook and land a Grass Carp.

Each year I go out at least twice to carp fish and the grass carp has been the unicorn that has evaded me. Now the ponds in which I fish they are very few in number but they are giants. I try standard American carp fishing for them bread, corn, dough baits, and cherry tomatoes.  In all my trips I have only fair hooked two grass carp until now and lost both. It seems my best chance at success is when they can be spotted and stalked. They also have to be feeding. One of these days I will to learn to catch them without seeing them. If anyone across the pond could point me in the right direction that would be great.

On this day it had just rained and I was looking for common carp by pipes feeding off the fresh food being delivered via the rain run-off. I did not see any movement. I was about to leave when a saw a huge tail pop up out of the water!! I quickly took some bread and threw a few pieces to chum and see if it would react. It quickly sucked down two large pieces. With my hands shaking uncontrollably I could hardly form a bread ball. I set the bait one foot down under a Thill float. I was using a bass pro 8-foot float and fly rod and a Shimano reel. The first cast the float went down quickly and I have a big swing and a miss. Man I missed another one I thought to myself. Even shakier I baited again. This time when it slowly started to swim away I nailed it!!! The next couple of minutes were shear terror and I watch my reel scream and line leaving the spool.

At about the five-minute mark I realize that I have no net, camera, and I am fishing off a 3-foot ledge!!! I franticly call my wife with one hand while fighting the white whale with the other. JUST DON’T LOOSE IT JUST DON’T LOOSE IT was playing over and over again in my brain. After about another 5 minutes my wonderful wife comes running with a net. The fish is soooo big I actually have to get in the water to land the behemoth.

YES!!! I have finally landed my first grass carp. I could not be happier. I conservative guess would be that it was 40+ inches and well over 20 pounds!! What a fantastic moment in my fishing career. Now of course since I have a bad case of fishing pox I am researching how to increase my numbers landed per year. It was awesome, my legs shook when it was all over and I had to catch my breath. What a great memory this will be.

Crabby Bass Lures Score Big With New Swim Jigs

Armed with one rod and two of Crabby Bass’s new swim jigs, I went out in cold front conditions not expecting much as it was windy and the temp had dropped over 10 degrees overnight. I decide that I would take a blue/white bait and a chart/white bait out with me. I paired them up with Big Hammer swim tails. I casted often and moved quickly. My goal was to cover as much water as I could and find the most active fish. It really paid off!! I land seven fish and lost 3. One I lost broke my heart. It was really heavy and it ripped drag and broke off before I could say oh Sh_T.

The Crabby Bass Jigs worked better then I ever could of expected. They are well made and held up to me slamming then against rip-rap for a couple hours.

They offer football jigs in 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 oz. Swim jigs are available in 5/16, 3/8, and 1/2 oz.

Colors include the following:

Brown-brown head
Green pumpkin-GP head
GP/purple-GP head
Blue/white-White head
Chart/white-Chartreuse head
Brown/orange-brown head
Brown/chart-watermelon red head
Black/blue-black head
CK special-GP head
Bluegill-GP head

The hooks are sweet and the skirts are solid

They are selling them at a good price for $4.00 each.

Please visit CrabbyBasslures.com and try some of their new jigs!!!

Top water pop-r fishing from kayak

Whackin Your way to Bass Success

One a hot Saturday morning, DuPageAngler.com member JcCrappies and I hit a few small ponds with high hopes for a top water bite. The top water bite only produced a couple fish. Face with very weedy ponds our list of effective presentations got very short. We decided to go with CrabbyBassLures.com Whacker. The Whacker is very similar to the senko.

The fish came fast and furious. Both of us getting a nice case of bass thumb. We also caught a few pigs which made the day that much better.

So why buy and fish the Whacker? Well I love Yamamoto Baits but the price is ridiculous 6.20-6.70 at Wal-Mart over 7 at other outlets. The Whacker is only 4.50 for the same 10 pack! Yamamoto uses what seems to be a ton of salt in the plastic or some other filler. This gives their baits a unique feel. But I cannot get more then two fish out of one of their baits. The conspiracy theorist in me says they have done this on purpose!! Crabby Bass’s Whacker are what they should be PLASTIC. This lets you catch quite a few more fish per bait. The final reason to buy from Crabby Bass is you can create your own bait. You get your color, Your glitter, and Your scent. This makes it yours. I used to fish a lot of slugos and I loved the half black and half blood red. I called Crabby Bass Lures up and they made my whackers in that same pattern. VERY FREAKIN COOL.

The whacker is a constant producer and works in many situations. Its affordable and easy to use.

EIGHT SUMMER ANGLING ADVENTURES

6-26-13 Kayak fishing with Dupageangler.com member Soonerbass aka Ted Yates:

We fished a suburban pond from out yaks and just crushed the fish! Sooner scored his on top water and I landed over 20 on four-inch Berkley Power worms it was an awesome summer night and a great way to break up the workweek. I landed an 18-inch fish on this trip! More on the trip click HERE

6-30-13 Whacker pond fishing with DA member JcCrappies (aka Chunsum Choi):

We hit three ponds and we had a blast!!! We went through so many whackers we had to stop at the house of Crabby Bass Lures partner Charles S and get some more plastics!! I landed an 18 and a 17-inch fish on this trip!

7-1-13 Kayaking and bassing a local lake solo to start my vacation:

I landed over ten bass with Crabby Bass Whackers and 4 in worms! My big fish for this day was a toad that measured 21 inches!!

7-3-13 Kayaking for summer panfish:

I was able to yak a private lake and got a bunch of 10-inch crappies and 7-inch gills. I used little atom plastics and night crawlers

7-4-13 Kayaking with Dupage Anglers and our kayak wars team:

Sooner Bass, Brim, JcCrappies, and myself all met at a small lake at dawn. The top water bite was non-stop for about an hour. Many bass were caught. Once the sun popped the bite all but shut down leaving us with only a few opportunities with plastics. I had so much fun. I landed 3 big fish on this trip a 17,18, and a 20 incher.

7-5-13 Short DuPage River wading trip fishing with Wacky Bass aka Marty R.:

Wacky and I had a couple hours and got a late start. We fished a stretch of the west branch in Plainfield and were covered in sweat before we even started fishing. We drifted live bait and grubs. We caught about 10 between us, had some fun, and then decided to get out of the heat.

7-6-13 Wading the West Branch with Chunsum (aka JcCrappies) in Shorewood:

We arrived very early and started drifting crawlers and crabby helgies. The Bite was not hot and heavy but persistence paid off. We did not catch many in our tradition holes many of the fish were hugging the shores under trees. I am glad Jc noticed this or we would not of caught at least 12 of our fish. My big fish for the day was 17 inches!

7-7-13 Guide Trip Booked with DuPage Anger Member Mcalla:

Mike want to learn more about wading and with the fox up and running we hit a tributary instead. We fished from 5:30 – 10:30 dodging most of the heat. We used my drifting technique with minnows, leeches, and crawlers. Mike scored big with 25 fish, six species, and several nice fish!! www.dupageguideservice.com

One Last Cast: Midweek Kayak Bass Fishing

One Last Cast: Midweek Kayak Bass Fishing: Dan( Pondboy's Angling Experience ) called me Wednesday evening to see if I wanted to meet up and do some kayak fishing.  He must of rea...

Back to Perch in Chicago

Mike C (www.Dupageangler.com member mcalla) Called me and asked if I would like to join him on a guided trip to Chicago on Lake Michigan for jumbo perch. His partner had to cancel so I quickly jumped at the chance.

Thinking on perch fishing, I was brought back to my youth powerlining www.powerlining.com for perch on the lakefront with my friends. We would wade creeks the day before catching crawfish and walk the tracks looking for railroad spikes to use as weights. We would arrive at the water in the dark and catch perch all day then go home and clean perch all night.

This was my first time back since I was a kid. We used Captain Ralph Steiger. http://captainsteiger.com/ We left the dock with high expectations for a quick limit.

When we started trolling our spinner rigs tipped with crawfish, we realized that it was not going to be an easy day.

We trolled near Navy Pier at around 1.3 – 2 miles per hour just tapping the tops of the weeds. The fish were there we just had to keep at it. Slowly but surely the fish started coming in. The sight of my first perch over 9 inches in years made me very happy. We caught a pile of dinky fish that had to be released. Capt Ralph said “we are staying out here until we get them.”  These words I was impressed to hear and this showed me that he was a good choice as our guide today. We trolled, talked, laughed, and caught fish. We grinded it out and left the lake with 20 in the box and day full of memories.