2019 Q4 NACA

north american

The last online NACA of 2019 sees a bumper edition with a number of tournament reviews, several articles and a few events to look forward to in the new-year. This year saw the CCC return to the Chicago area and although the weather and conditions did not cooperate the attendees had a great time. The always popular Big 4 saw some excellent fish captured throughout the country and once again the competition was fierce. A couple of highlights in this issue include a wonderful Discovery article from Jerome Moisand who travels each year and captures it for us to all enjoy. We also have Part 2 of my own Italian adventure with ‘Place of Dreams’. Finally we feature the famous globetrotting carper, Steve Briggs who has kindly allowed us to re-publish his Dale Hollow success.

One area we would like to highlight is our ongoing search for volunteers within CAG. Our current President, Iain Sorrell has reached the end of his term and we also have spots available on the Board of Directors. Anyone who would like to be involved or has interest, please reach out as CAG only runs due to the generous amount of time our volunteers donate.

As always we rely on our members contributions and I want to thank everyone; both past and present who has contributed to this magazine over the years. Without your input the magazine would cease to exist.

Hope you all enjoy this edition and as always, if anyone would like to contribute; please send any communications or materials to naca@carpanglersgroup.com

Dean Brookes Editor in Chief

On the cover:

Blake Carlson with a 32lb 8oz fantail carp from the CT River.

Winter seems to have come early to many areas this year!

While most folk have already packed away their carp gear there are still a few hardy souls who will brave freezing conditions to continue fishing throughout the winter.

In other areas, where the summer months are unbearably hot, fishing for carp and buffalo in the coming months is often at its best. The past couple of weeks have seen some unseasonably artic conditions that sealed the lid on many waters here in New England and sadly stalled my own late Fall fishing.

I’m still hoping for the occasional warm day to get me out on the water to try some feeder fishing in a couple of rivers.

2019 has been another busy year for CAG. Our membership growth continues to be positive together with over 4,000 people on our Facebook page. Traditional events like the First Fishing Folly along with the Spring & Fall Big 4 Events were all well subscribed and we had another successful North American Carp Conference featuring top line US vendors and a ‘live link’ with carp legend Steve Briggs. In July CAG supported the 17th St Lawrence Junior Tournament & in September we saw a return to Chicago for the 2019 CCC and the start of Discovery Month.

My term as President is now complete and we continue to look for someone to take over the helm. As a not-for-profit organization CAG remains, as it has done over its 26 year history, dedicated to introducing people to catch & release carp fishing throughout North America and spearheading efforts to protect trophy carp. Even if you don’t have the opportunity to fish over the winter months I’d encourage everyone to get together to share the memories and experiences from the past season or why not try set up clinics to teach rig tying & other skills to newcomers?

My thanks to all our Members, State Chairs, fellow Directors and everyone who has helped CAG over the past year.

Wishing you all Peace & Happiness for the Holidays and tight lines in 2020

Tight Lines! President Iain Sorrell

BLAZE FEEDERS NEW

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Blaze Feeders are made in Europe. They are widely used there, but now also available in US!

Blaze Feeder Round Mesh

Blaze Distance Feeder

Blaze Feeder Square

Blaze Feeder Tunnel River

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Results

This year the Fall Big 4 returned and once again we had great participation throughout many states.

Below are the results and pictures. Well done to everyone who participated and logged fish.

The Big 4 Winners:

CAG BIG 4 TOP 10

Blayne Beeler – 107lb 15oz

BIG FISH WINNERS

Kody

Sean

30lb 12oz

REGIONAL WINNERS

Region 1

Region 2

Region 3

Jerome Moisand

David Simacek

Chris Colemenero

R1

ME, NH, VT, CT, RI, NY, NJ, WV, VA, DC, DE, PA

R2

ND, SD, NB, KS, MN, IA, MO, WI, IL, MI, IN, KY, OH

R3

TN, NC, SC, GA, TX, MS, OK, LA, FL, AR, AL

R4

WA, OR, CA, NV, NM, CO, WY, ID, AZ, MT, UT

R5 Canada, Mexico

PLACE OF DREAMS PART TWO

– Return to paradise

SEPTEMBER 2019 RETURN –STICKING TO YOUR GUNS

By Dean Brookes

Plans were made, flights, hotels and rental cars were booked and myself and Iain Sorrell were looking forward to a return to Parco. I’d had a very busy year with work and hardly fished so I was most certainly looking forward to a week of Italian sun and hopefully a few fish.

Having fished many times with Iain we had similar ideas as to bait and once again we ordered a host of Spotted Fin products.

This time we went with a fishmeal boilie (Smokey Jack Tuna) as the water was much warmer and again we went with a few liquids (tuna and a particle syrup) along with some stick mixes and a few bags of hemp.

Flying from Boston to Venice, via Madrid

To this we would also purchase a couple of sacks of fishmeal pellet (2mm and 6mm) from Parco directly as well as getting several cans of tuna fish and sweetcorn to add to the mix.

Bait choice was easy with a range of Spotted Fin products and also liberal use of the pellets

The bait was mailed directly to the lake this time, making it easier and we also visited a local tackle shop prior to the first day which was well stocked and in future will make things easier in terms of what we bring across on the plane.

At Parco, you can also purchase food, drinks and some basic tackle items but having a rental car was a massive improvement on the previous year.

We arrived a day early and once through customs and in our rental car we made straight for the lake. The lake is fished all year and this week was no exception.

A good walk around the lake chatting to the anglers was a couple of hours well spent as not only did we discover what had been caught it also gave us the chance to see several signs of fish.

From our discussions the lake was fishing relatively slow as a few weeks previously a large number of fish had been caught. However, even though the numbers were low, as is the case with Parco, some massive fish had been banked; including several 50lb fish, a few 60’s and a massive 83lb common.

We headed from the lake a short distance to the bed and breakfast we had booked and met up with several of the guys fishing with us on the same trip. Beers were drunk, food was eaten and many stories shared. It was a great start and exactly what these trips should be about. I have to say, all of the people on this particular trip were a pleasure to fish with and socialize.

Everyone wanted to help each other and celebrate each other’s success. I really look forward to seeing many of them again.

PEG DRAW AND FIRST PLANS MADE

Knowing my own luck in peg draws I was not looking forward to this event. As Frank was arriving late and a couple of the anglers were stuck in traffic, Iain was tasked with the job of organizing everything.

I mapped out a lake diagram and we put the pairs’ names into the hat. In all we had 18 anglers (9 pairs) and with 9 double swims available and well as several single swims there was plenty of scope for everyone. Myself and Iain had a least one preference in each area of the lake but if I’m being honest my heart was set on Peg 1.

This area is a point and has lots of areas to fish to, as well as a sunken road. While I was sure there were more fish in front of west bank (Pegs 3-7) which would prove to be the case,

I knew that Peg 1 was a big fish area. It also was next to Peg 22, which I wanted another crack at as well as the added benefit of being close to the club house, bathrooms, showers and WiFi.

I was fairly certain I would stand ZERO chance of getting into the peg.

First out was Shannon and Tel, who straight away went into a favorite area; Peg 17. Next out was Kilo and Chris who surprisingly went into Peg 7. Frank came out next and as he had both sons with him (Jamie and Guy) chose a couple of double swims next to each other;

A map of the lake with Peg 1 being top of my list

Pegs 13 and 14. Adam and his dad were next out and as they were still travelling Frank would pick for them.

Peg 1 sticks out into the lake and has an old sunken road as the main feature

Peg 1 was mentioned and I thought that was that, but as Adam’s first choice was Peg 16 that’s where they opted for. As we came out next I had no hesitations and Peg 1 was duly picked.

To be fair I would have been happy in 3 or 4 of the remaining areas but I now had no one to blame it Peg 1 didn’t produce for us.

The rest of the draw was a blur as I just wanted to get the gear down to the swim, decide on areas and then get some bait out into the water.

As we were the first drop off with the gear we also got the pick of the crop, with new bivvy’s, bed chairs and sleeping bags.

Iain, starting the process of unpacking and getting the rods out

I was also pleased that several of the items had been upgraded since November, with net nets, slings and decent chairs. We also received a bag of the onsite pellet which was a definite requirement as the fish absolutely love it.

PREPARATION AND DECISIONS

It’s very easy to rush around when fishing a lake like Parco Del Brenta. With numbers of big fish, you just want to get the rods in the water and fishing. Myself and Iain, being more seasoned (or older) restrained ourselves and the first thing we set up was the Deeper Pro. This is connected straight onto a spod rod and acts as a sonar with the phone being the receiver.

Rather than casting a marker float through the water layers, the Deeper stay’s on the surface and in 14-24 feet of water (that’s the depth we had in front of us) was absolutely no distur-

bance to the fish. In fact it’s a similar sound to the spomb hitting the water.

An important modern aid which really does help to quickly map out a swim

The Deeper Pro gives good depth images, shows week and also pings fish!

We worked as a team and it took us about an hour or so to get a rough idea as to the depths and features we had in front of us.

Basically, the point we were on was the end of an old road, which ran straight into the lake across to the opposite bank.

The road itself created a plateau with the shallowest area being 6 feet deep and going down to around 10 ft at its deepest.

To the right of the road was Peg 20 and 21’s water and the left it dropped down to 14 f, before coming back up to 12 ft almost forming a second plateau. Straight off this 12 ft the lake dropped very steeply into 23 ft of water and stayed at that depth for the next 100 yards or so. Our margins were around 14 ft deep and dropped off again to the deeper areas.

Iain was keen to fish on the left of the swim as he had several spots that he had discussed with other anglers and also had a bay to his left.

On my own side I was happy to fish to the right as I had several depths to choose from. We would fish this way until Wednesday and then decide whether to swap sides or stay in position. We both agreed to bait up an area between us at around 50 yards as this was where the water reached the bottom of the drop-off. We didn’t put a ton of bait in to start, but over the next hour we spombed a bucket or so (around 5kg of bait) at the same distance over a 20 yard section. We’d also seen some fish on the sonar at this distance so it was a good starting point.

A mixture of boilies, pellets and corn to start off

FIRST BLOOD

As we’d been spombing I’d lobbed a couple of rods out to likely looking areas, with one of them going into the middle of the bay to my right.

I hadn’t put the rod on an alarm and after an hour or so I heard a rustle in the reeds and saw the rod hooped over.

I grabbed the rod and a fish was attached, although it appeared to have gone through a snag (I later discovered this was most likely a large boulder on the lake bed as a large carp also found refuge there). I bought the fish back to the obstacle and after a couple of angle changes the line pinged free and shortly after I had a fish in the net. Not a carp, but a fish none the less and a species that was new to me, being a long nosed sturgeon.

Not the intended species but a lovely fish and a new species

Iain struck next with a couple of large channel cats (17lb and 19lb) which gave a good account of themselves.

No one really knows how these fish got into Parco, as they are indigenous to America, but they are now there in numbers and go up to a fairly big size.

Iain would only catch a couple more of these ‘nuisance’ fish, whereas I would go onto to catch over a dozen, with nearly all of them being between 20-29lb’s.

Nearly 30lb’s but definitely not happy catching catfish

It wasn’t until the next morning that Iain had the first carp with a lovely looking upper 30lb mirror on a pellet method ball. I proceeded to land a few more catfish, which kept the heart rate high as they really do take off like a carp and have some weight to them.

Typically, after a few minutes you know that you are playing a catfish as they make quick runs and shake their head non-stop.

Shortly before the evening drew in I was happy enough with my first carp and although small by Parco standards it gave me the confidence I needed that at least one of the spots would be productive. On any trip, whether a few hours or several days long my primary goal is to land the first fish.

A small Parco mirror but my first of the trip

Once this is done you can start to piece things together, but for the most part I try to work out what the fish are doing before I make any decisions that could negatively affect the session.

GOAL ACHIEVED

On my first visit I had the main goal of catching a big Italian mirror, which I was lucky enough to achieve and although there are some monster carp in Parco my goal for this trip was not too ridiculous; mainly a 50lb + common. A second goal would be to up my overall PB and maybe even break the 60lb barrier but the common was a good aim and more than realistic as the lake help many in excess of this size.

You can’t always determine what fish pick up your hook baits but you can try and stack the odds in your favor.

On the first night I was uneasy with where I was fishing and where we had baited. I mulled things over in my mind and had a hunch that I needed to be 30 yards further out along the sunken road as this is where I thought the fish may be traveling across our area.

As we hadn’t committed too much bait to the first area (maybe 8-10kg’s) I had a few casts with a lead and then went about the process of resetting all of my rods to the new distance and baiting with around 5kg of mixed boilies, pellets and corn on the new spots. This was all done between the hours of 12.00am and 4.00am and I’m sure Iain must have wondered what I was doing, but I knew I wouldn’t be happy until I was fishing effectively.

Regular baiting is a very effective method at Parco

I can never be unhappy catching the wrong species when they are stunning, like this short nosed sturgeon

During the next morning after I’d caught my first carp I re-baited all my spots and also baited up the adjacent Peg 22 which is a nice quiet bay that myself and Iain were planning to fish for a few hours each evening, but were leaving for at least the first few days to encourage the fish to feed confidently.

At Parco, one method that is very effective is regular baiting and even when not catching it’s a method that pays off if you put the work in.

After a few more catfish I kept the bait going in and was rewarded by a nice upper 30lb mirror and then shortly into the night I hooked a much better fish.

In Peg 1, the most prominent feature is a sunken road, which runs almost across the entire lake. It averages 12-14 feet deep and is mainly a gravel surface.

As I know almost all anglers who fish in this swim favor the top of the road I decided to instead fish in the deeper water to the side, which was in 17 feet of water and also consisted of a silt sub strata. My thought was that this was where much of the bait would go and the fish would not be wary of feeding on these spots. I fished one rod in this spot and then staggered another rod to the left, approximately 15 yards away and in slightly deeper water of 21 feet. I also was aware of a much shallower spot on the road which was only 6 feet deep but I decided to leave this for several days and just keep bait going in on it; more of this spot later.

Back to the better fish that was now attempting to find the same sunken feature as the long nosed sturgeon.

As I knew this was at the mouth of the bay I was able to apply more pressure to the fish and it gradually came up through the layers. One thing to mention is that Parco fish fight very hard!! The water is deep and they use all of it to their advantage. This fish gave me another 10 minutes of work and finally I coaxed it to the net, where Iain did the honors.

Peering in with the head torch it was a really lightly colored common and a chunk. Had I broken the 50lb barrier? On the scales the fish went over 54lb and I was one happy angler.

EFFORT = REWARD

As I’ve already mentioned, it really does pay off when you keep working your swim at Parco Del Brenta. One area that I pay particular attention to is accurate baiting.

It’s very easy to move rods about and before you know it you have bait all over the area. When this happens it’s much harder to concentrate the fish in one area and also to know what is working.

Tools of the trade that are important include the Deeper Pro to work out the swim initially, a good spod rod and supply of spombs, marker sticks so you can bait and fish at the exact range desired and a good supply of bait that the fish want to eat.

Baiting wise over the first few days I used more boilies (mainly chopped and crumbed) and pellets, but as the week went on I increased my use of sweet corn, attractor liquids and also more whole boilies. Topping up the areas every 30 to 60 minutes with 20-30 boilies from a throwing stick was another method that worked well.

Rig wise, things were kept very simple with strong end tackle and hooks. One change I did make was in my approach to fishing pellet method. The previous trip I had been using Fox Tri-Lobe feeders which presented a good ball of bait. However, I had had a couple of missed takes and coupled with Iain also having a few missed runs with this method I started to think that the carp were picking up the whole method ball and moving off.

When picking up the rod, as the method ball was fairly large it would not be completely in the carps’ mouth and thus pulled out when any resistance was added.

Fox Tri-lobe method leads were effective but resulted in a few missed takes

For this trip I had bought several paste bombs instead as when pellet method was molded around it, the resulting ball was much smaller. Over the course of the week I did not miss one fish and all of the takes on this lead set-up were slow rises with virtually no line bites, which are usually typical when fishing this way.

A unique fish with no wrist to its tail, taken on method wrapped around a paste bomb

BACK TO BACK

Approaching the third night, myself and Iain decided to try a few hours in Peg 22. I gave Iain the choice of areas as we were only planning on fishing one rod each. Iain chose the right had side and I decided on the same spot I had fished the previous November, at the bottom of the shelf on the far side of the bay.

This was only a 50 yard distance and the plan was to get the rod in position first time, slacked off the main line and keep disturbance at a minimum.

It was now an hour or two into dark and we had enjoyed a fantastic steak dinner and were now sampling a local red wine.

My rod burst into life and after a short 5 minute fight I had an upper 30lb common in the net; happy days. The rod was repositioned and another 4 spombs of bait were quickly put over the top. About another 45 minutes passed and the bobbin slowly rose to the top again. Lifting into the fish it felt decent and the fish didn’t really do much apart from use its weight.

The fight wasn’t particularly savage and although I though the fish was decent I wasn’t expecting it to be approaching 60lb!!

As there is a no sacking rule on Parco and as it was still relatively early in the night we rattled off some night shots which came out fine.

A cracking lightly scaled mirror and at over 57lb’s a real chunck

A few rum and cokes were dispatched as a celebration and then we reeled in and retreated back to Peg 1.

It’s important to note that while we did have a few drinks, we were by no means incapacitated. I’d definitely not recommend drinking heavily while near water, but a few social drinks are part of what these holiday trips are about.

It took me around 20 minutes to reposition the rods, and put 2-3 spombs of bait over each area.

I crawled into my sleeping bag a very happy carper and fell into a slumber with dreams of monster carp swimming around in my head.

A one tone warble from the delkim awoke me around 4.00am and I quickly exited the bivvy and picked up the rod.

This fish had once again come from the deeper gully area of the sunken road and again it made a beeline for the bay and the sunken snag.

The same procedure was repeated but this fight took much, much longer. The carp made several trips up and down the near margin of the bay before it eventually gave up. This time I netted the fish on my own as Iain was still snoring and I had the net handy. Once in the net I grabbed the sling, sorted out the scales and then tried to pick up the net!! It was a little bit heavier than I first thought, so I slid the sling underneath the net which made the fish much easier to carry.

On the matt I unhooked the 24mm snowman from its bottom lip and pondered that it looked bigger than the 57lb fish and the scales swung round to just over 59lb!!

As we were now only around 60 minutes from first light I secured the fish in the margins and then made myself a coffee to celebrate.

STICKING WITH YOUR AREAS

It’s safe to say that although we were only three days into the trip my session was already made. I was hoping it continued, but I was also hoping Iain would be able to share in the big fish action.

We had informally agreed that we would switch the sides we were fishing on Wednesday if it was clear that one side was better. However, Iain had three cracking upper 40lb fish on Tuesday night from his margin spot, which ultimately resulted in him sticking with the left hand side of the swim.

Interestingly, most people we had spoken to actually preferred the left hand side which has access to deeper water and also covers a travel area the carp use.

The right hand sides’ main feature is the sunken road, but with no change I was able to keep bait going onto the same spots regularly.

Once you have decided on the spots you want to fish, it really does pay to stick with them for the whole session.

A week is a long time to fish, but with over 2000 carp in the lake it’s almost impossible that they won’t come through your swim at some point. Having a concentrated area of bait will certainly help your chances of catching more than the odd carp.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw me continuing to bait regularly and although I wasn’t catching a lot of fish I was picking off 3 or 4 carp each night.

I was convinced that as long as I was consistent I would see the action increase. So far all of the carp I had caught were in the night, but as this is usually the way I fish in the US I was quite happy with this situation.

Not a monster but a near leather and a stunning fish

THE ACTION PICKS UP

As the week had progressed it seemed as though most of the fish were spending time in other areas and our swim was more of a travel zone. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it often gives you a better chance of big fish which may be travelling in smaller groups.

Thursday saw me catch my first few fish in the day. After three fish in the morning and a nice breakfast I decided it would be a good time to grab a shower and change of clothes. Typically the time between 12.00pm and 3.00pm would be fairly quiet on the whole lake so I felt this was a decent time to leave the swim.

As I only planned to be gone for 10-15 minutes I left Iain to look after the rods. Swim 1, is only a few hundred yards from the club house so I planned to be back in quick time.

As I approached I saw one of the other anglers celebrating as he’s just caught a cracking 60lb+ mirror. He offered me a cold beer and we were chatting for 5 minutes when I happened to glance back to the swim and could see Iain on the far right with a rod in his hand. A quick sprint back and it was my left hand rod, in the deeper water. Iain did the decent thing and handed me the rod, noting that it was only a small fish!! Five minutes later it was in the net and not that small. A few ounces over 50lb I was happy to have my picture taken with it.

Not so little and a deep bodied common that picked up a bait in 21 feet of water

This time I wound the other rods in and went back to finish my beer and my shower.

I also bought a few cold beers back for Iain as I was very appreciating of his gillie work.

Another cracking upper 50lb Italian Mirror

PREPARING A SPOT

As Thursday evening approached I decided I would reposition a rod (this was my third rod that was being used to cast to showing fish and not on a baited area) on the shallow area of the sunken road.

This was only a 30 yard cast but it was a really small spot and dropped off steeply either side of the spot. Accuracy with the bait and the cast was important. As the spot was much shallower I also used a lot more sweet corn as I wanted it to be very visual and obvious for any fish swimming over the area.

The first night this area produced a couple of dreaded catfish and a small carp, but the next day I re-baited regularly and stuck to my guns.

As we approached the final night on Friday, the last hour of light saw the shallow area rod absolutely thunder off. I very spirited fight over 20 minutes saw another really big fish in the net.

However, before I could sort it out, Iain had an absolute beast on the end of one of his rods. It was obvious after about 10 minutes it was not a carp as it plowed across the lake picking up around 6 to 8 lines on the opposite bank!! It took some doing but we eventually got the fish in the margins and I secured a big sturgeon half way in the net.

I helped Iain with a few pictures and then just into dusk we got some nice pictures of my carp, which swung the scales around to over 58lb’s.

FINAL NIGHT SUCCESS

After releasing the 58lb mirror I re-baited all of the rods again, settled down to eat dinner which had been temporarily put on hold and grab a relaxing glass of wine. I sat up for a few hours with Iain and we both hoped for a last night beast to finish the trip.

After settling into my sleeping bag I got to sleep in the early hours and at some point a few hours later the shallow spot once again produced a bite.

This fish was a whole different ball of wax!! It tore off on a 50 yards run and then kited hard into the bay. Once again I worked hard to get it off the bottom layers and into mid water to hopefully avoid any snags.

The fish felt very powerful and decided that the far side of the bay and the overhanging trees were where it wanted to find sanctuary. It took the rod in full battle mode to slow the fish down but it was only the start of the fight as the fish plowed back and forth across the bay and at one point was a good 50-60 yards into the bay, nearly directly in front of Peg 22.

After about 30 minutes I was convinced that this was no carp and was in fact a big sturgeon. It fought very similar to the near 60lb sturgeon I had caught in November and as I had not seen the fish or even been close to getting it near the surface I made my mind up.

With thoughts of a carp no out of my mind I picked up the pressure and really tried to show the fish who was boss!!

The next 5 minutes I bullied the fish back up the near margins and seemingly out of nowhere the fish popped up to the surface…..it was not a sturgeon after all. Instead, it was a massive common carp which was wallowing on the surface.

I pulled myself together and grabbed the net and proceeded to bundle it into the safety of the mesh. I stood there in disbelief and placed the net securely in the margins and went back to my bivvy to sit down and compose myself.

Again, a strong coffee was needed and after regaining my senses I unhooked the fish, quickly weighed it and secured it in the retaining sling as daylight was now close by.

A beast of a common that put up the hardest fight I’ve ever experienced

On the scales the fish registered over 61lb and was all muscle. The wrist of the tale was massive and it was no surprise that it fought so hard.

In the morning I sheepishly informed Iain, he’d need to take a few pictures for me. My trip had been more than made with a few decent fish, but this was the cherry on top.

Such a solid fish that made my year

WHAT’S NEXT?

The trip had been a success for me for a number of reasons. Firstly I got to fish with a good friend who I always’ enjoy spending time with. We shared stories, laughs and plenty of good food and drink.

I also got to fish one of the areas I’d wanted to experience and it certainly didn’t disappoint. The fish definitely made the trip worthwhile and although in terms of numbers I hadn’t blitzed it with around 25 fish, I had managed a good amount of bigger fish with five 50lb+ carp and one 60lb+ fish.

The Parco Del Brenta owners also play a big part as they are very welcoming and helpful. The trips which are run by Frank Warwick, also have a great group of guys on them which makes the fishing much easier.

With that said, it’s no surprise that I went back again in September in 2019. I’ll detail that trip and the change of tactics I had to adopt in the next issue of NACA.

Until then, be lucky.

CCC 2019

Chad Bettisch 2019 CCC host

Wayne Boone proudly displays the CCC trophy as the 2019 winner

The day started just before daylight driving thru the beautiful skyline of Chicago on our way to the pre fish at Montrose harbor. We had started the morning with 5 anglers hitting the banks of the inner harbor early.

Chris Mathews from Illinois had a screaming run in the first 30 minutes that eventually was lost in a snag. Hope was in the air at least. We had four more anglers join us in the next few hours to seek a Lake Michigan carp.

The weather forecast was looking nasty as a major storm system was rolling into northern Illinois and was slated to hit Chicago at just before noon.

The only lucky angler to land a carp was Chris Reitan. He managed to land a couple of carp in the mid teens, one before the storm and another one decided to strike as it was pouring rain. Needless to say, the storms were enough to call it a day earlier than expected.

The rain had been pounding down all day at this point however, it was now time for the meet and greet at the Clarion hotel Friday evening.

The turnout was great with anglers enjoying good food and drinks. As the night went on and the drinks were flowing the fishing stories began to be the topic of many anglers.

It’s nice to not only see other anglers that you have not seen in a long time but, it’s great to meet new ones as well.

The evening was winding down as we had peg draw at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. The rain was still coming down.

As the 43 registered anglers entered Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park for check in on Saturday morning, the Des Plaines river was flowing at a rate of over 18,000 CFPS.

This is the result of the massive storms that had dumped over 5” of rain the night before. At this point we proceeded with the peg draw starting with pairs and then on to the single angler. We had eight states and two countries being represented for this year’s event.

The states were Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma and California.

Conditions required extreme solutions

We were also lucky enough to have Steve and Joan Briggs all the way from the U.K. The couple happened to be in the states on holiday and decided to enter the CCC on the last leg of their U.S. excursion. As we approached 8a.m. the horn sounded.

The 2019 CCC was underway. Anglers were quick to realize that the fishing was pretty much limited to staying near that wall.

If you wanted to fish a bit out and try and fight the weed mats you would have to put up to 12oz. of lead just to be able to hold bottom… this was a crazy fast current.

The only carp that was caught before noon was in section “C” by Indiana native Destinie Vaughn. She managed to capture an 8lb 2oz common.

The only other carp would be caught in the last hour in section “B” by Wayne Boone weighing in at 8lb 15oz. At 4p.m. the horn once again sounded to close the 2019 CCC.

Only two carp were caught on a very challenging day

The winning carp

The awards banquet was held a couple of hours after the CCC had ended at the Rockdale Athletic Club.

Anglers were welcomed to a large selection of food and drinks, enough to satisfy anyone’s appetite.

As everyone was eating and drinking the allure of the two pool tables worth of prizes were memorizing. After dinner we promptly went on with the awards ceremony first.

The grand prize winner was Wayne Boone with his only catch of an 8lb 15oz carp landing him not only the North American Carp Championship but, Carp King and section winner.

Wayne received a Dale Hollow Rx certificate, a tracker weigh sling, a Carp King belt buckle, North American Carp trophy, section trophy and a one of a kind Gyotaku fish print by renowned artist Jeff Conroy.

The only other carp caught by Destinie Vaughn landed her a section trophy as well as a few choice table prizes. We then started to get to the prize tables starting with auctioning off a set of Delkim alarms with swingers donated by BCT and then a bank chair donated by CAG.

The tables full of prizes were next. It took

nearly an hour a half to raffle off the two tables full of over 200 prizes. We had an outstanding amount of tickets sold.

As the drinks were flowing and the good times going the crowd began to thin out and at just after 10:30 p.m. the last of us had called it a night.

As I look back at the planning, preparation, and execution of the 2019 CCC I am happy to say it was a great time despite the poor conditions that mother-nature served us.

I was able to see a lot of old friends as well as make some new ones. I hope that everyone that attended went home with a new memory or story to tell at the next CCC.

I would like to thank everyone that donated, attended, and helped out with this event. Without everyone’s help this would not of happened. It was an honor to be able to host this event.

Baits for Anglers By Anglers

Discovery Month Discovery Month 2019 Prize Winners

In past years I’ve always enjoyed reading CAG Members Discovery Month stories. In essence Discovery Month is about exploring new spots and fishing them, however, most times our CAG Members write wonderful reviews of their discoveries which makes choosing a winner a hard task.

This is why we open up the voting to ALL CAG members as it truly is a subjective process.

Discovery Month WINNING ARTICLE

A few years ago, Olivier Gandzadi (aka The Sniper, aka the Pacific Northwest discoverer) started to post pictures of beautiful carp caught in stunning desertic and mountainous environments, from Oregon and Washington states.

I received excited phone calls about the wonders of the Columbia river and the Snake river, if one were to drive a few hours east of Portland (where I fished for white sturgeons with Olivier quite a few times). I started to play with the idea of going there or further upstream. Then last year, my wife wanted to give me a nice Christmas gift and totally independently suggested a fishing trip to Coeur d’Alene, a large scenic lake close to the border of Idaho and Washington states. Both inputs triggered this discovery trip.

I landed in Spokane on Sep 8th, rented a car and went to buy essentials (a few buckets, a big cooking pot, two bags of dried maize and some cracked corn).

Later in the day, I walked around the river near the (quite pretty) center of the city and discovered that my cursory Internet investigation wasn’t quite right.

Lots of waterfalls, brackish shallow water and steep shores.

I drove out of town along the Spokane river for a little while only to find the same pattern. Google Maps and Google Earth aren’t too good at showing depth and water movement!

Back to the drawing board, I checked the Internet again while boiling my maize in the evening.

I figured out that the river does widen and spotted what seemed to be a great spot near the mouth of the river, half a mile before it flows in the Columbia.

I drove there in the morning, crossing beautiful wheat fields, and this time, I loved the spot! The river was bending under a bridge, with a nice bay of sorts along a pleasant park (dubbed Fort Spokane). Plenty of rocks on the shore were indicative of crayfish under water. I unpacked and dragged my gear out there (a bit of a walk) and set up close to a young fisherman.

He confirmed that carp swim around (he caught a couple on worms), that crayfish are abundant and that carp actively jump early in the morning. ALL GOOD. Except that I couldn’t get a bite, plus we got drenched twice in a row (it didn’t cross my mind to take a raincoat for my trip in the desert!).

I threw a good deal of bait and came back the day after, fairly early.

Two hours later, I was developing serious doubts, which evaporated when I got the run that changed everything…

I started with a big bang, a really nice fish. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good pic of this one, except of the release.

An hour later, I got another solid fish, very cool. I had to move on though, my plan didn’t allow a lot of time in Spokane, so I drove away early afternoon, quite pumped.

I was aiming at Wenatchee on the Columbia, but I wanted to take time to go check Grand Coulee and its dam.

I spent a couple of hours there, even wet a line just for the sake of it and was duly impressed by the desert scenery.

Then I drove along the ‘coulee’ on route 155, a meandering road on the side of a string of lakes called Banks Lake. The road follows the base of steep cliffs, giant rocks lay in the water, this is absolutely SPECTACULAR, I was stopping every few minutes to take pictures…

I found out while writing this story that a CAGI event was organized at Banks Lake in 2007 and some local CAG members did well fishing on the fly. Unfortunately, my schedule didn’t allow fishing time in this incredible venue.

I reached Wenatchee at the end of the day and took a good walk at dusk along at the park nearby. Two spots seemed promising. The day after, seeing the area in bright light, I loved it.

The Wanatchee river flows in the Columbia half a mile upstream, creating a large bay that just screamed for carp. One of my spots was right at the end of the bay, with some depth,

some weeds but not a lot, the wind blowing towards a rocky shore.

I set up my rods, threw a few method balls and waited for the inevitable sign of carp to come. Half a day later, I was none the wiser.

I could see some occasional rolls close to where the main river was flowing, but I wasn’t too sure those were carp. For the sake of it, I tried to move there for a couple of hours, but nothing moved. Hm.

Late afternoon, quite bored, I drove around, but didn’t find any other suitable spot. I paid a quick visit to the dam a few miles upstream and was mesmerized by the fish ladder and the windows allowing to get a quick glimpse of numerous sizable salmons passing by. I went back to the park at dusk, chummed heavily and hoped for the best.

The day after, same scenario and same outcome, very frustrating. It was clear by then that the rolling fish were salmons. I kept trying, to no avail.

Late afternoon, I visited the dam’s museum, which was surprisingly large and enlightening. I checked the fish ladder again and recorded a short video!

I relented. I started to give phone calls to salmon fishing guides and finally succeeded to schedule something very early the following morning mid-way to Kennewick. I had to wake up before 4am (yawn) and leave quickly to be there on time.

An overly excited fishing guide made another client and myself land salmons in no time, reaching our quota and going back to shore in less than 90 minutes. Beautiful fish (~20 pounders), but… this wasn’t quite satisfying.

Except for my next Airbnb host who saw me arrive mid-morning with pounds and pounds of salmon fillets for her!

I had plenty of time left that day, I drove towards a nice spot on the Columbia in Kennewick that Olivier told me about, and spent most of the day landing one carp after another. It was fun to begin with, but I started cringing, as few fish were above 10 or 12 pounds.

Plus it wasn’t the desert scenery I was looking for. So I quickly fell back to discovery mode. Late afternoon, I found lots of access to the Columbia, but the ecosystem was obviously the same. In the evening, I pondered if there was a dam nearby that could create a change of ecosystem?

Ah yes, the last dam on the Snake river before it flows in the Columbia!

The day after, I was at the dam and it looked great, beautiful scenery, plenty of space to fish from shore, a local angler told me carp were jumping at times.

Two spots seemed especially promising. I fished one of them all morning and saw exactly nothing. Steelhead anglers weren’t successful either, mind you.

Early afternoon, I drove along the river upstream, found a nice park, wasn’t too excited about it (although I noticed plenty of small shells on the shore), drove further to an area tantalizingly named “Fishhook park” which turned out to be closed for the season, grrr.

I drove back, checked a couple of other spots closer to the Columbia, but really the dam was where I wanted to fish. As a side note, Olivier told me later he never fished there. I came back the next day, was very lucky to have a steelhead angler vacate the exact swim I wanted to fish (near overhanging trees), set up and waited for hours.

And I finally got a run and a nice mid teen. RELIEF. Then another run. Darn it, a catfish. I tried again, to no avail. I tried a couple of other things downstream of the dam, nada. Hmpf. Discovery is hard, it is one thing to find nice-looking spots and quite another to actually catch.

I drove towards Lewiston by the end of the afternoon, over the plateau. I finally took a turn towards the Snake river, ended up at a small park with a not-so-exciting backwater. Then I drove along the main river, which flows in some sort of lengthy canyon, surrounded

on both sides by steep rocky slopes for miles and miles. Another section of the river nearby is dubbed “Hell’s Canyon”! Another truly spectacular drive, I have never seen anything like that. Where to fish though? Plenty of access along the road, amazing views, but very little structure.

I drove along, observing the other shore and I noticed a large bay and what seemed to be an island. Later this evening, Google Maps confirmed my perception and lucky me, the island was a camping/recreation area reachable via a small bridge. Now that is structure!

In the morning, I crossed the Lewiston/Clarkson bridge and stopped to check the local boat

ramp and the town park along the river. It didn’t take long. Jump. Jump. Jump. Ok, ok, all right, I’m setting up here to begin with. Sure enough, once they found my bait, I caught one fish after another. None of them larger than 10 pounds. What is (missing) in the water around here? Early afternoon, I had enough, drove towards the island and explored.

Some areas displayed ‘rattle snake’ warning signs, ah, er, maybe not. Two spots seemed especially convenient, scenic and promising.

I fished one of them for a couple of hours, saw a few jumps farther away, got one single run at the end of the day.

I made a plan. I would heavily chum this spot tonight, come early in the morning, lightly chum the other spot, back to spot #1, fish there for a few hours, then switch to spot#2.

A pattern I often used while exploring Quebec when I was a bit younger and more energetic!

Luckily enough, this worked to perfection. In the morning, I got one run after another at spot#1 and had good fun. Once I landed (and sacked) a mid teen, I bugged the ranger at the park booth nearby to come and take some scenic pictures.

As luck would have it, I got another run right then and she was happy to take many pictures while I played and landed the fish.

Then I moved to spot#2, it took longer to work, but they started to bite as well and I got a decent enough fish for more scenic pictures. Now that was a good plan!

At the end of the day, I drove back to the canyon area, getting more ambitious about my plans for the next day. I struggled to find a spot that seemed promising, finally located a nice point of rock with a slack area behind it, a fish jumped in front of me, this day was just perfect. SO FAR. I drove a quarter of a mile downstream, took a look at another apparently nice opening and… stumbled on a carp cemetery. Dozens of mid teen carp (including a rare mirror) were lying there, rotting in the sun, recently killed by what can barely qualify as human beings. So utterly disgusting and idiotic. Bow fishing as a form of hunting, I can somewhat understand, my dad liked to hunt. But dropping fish carcasses on the shore to rot, that is completely beyond me. I fumed for a while, vented during a phone call to my patient wife, then decided “screw them, I’ll fish my newly discovered spot, damn it”.

And I did come back the day after. And I caught carp, nice healthy fish, mid teens. Got a hard time to land them due to floating logs, but I did, all of them. And I finished with a 20 pounder.

And I took great scenic pictures. And I released all fish in good health.

And this was very satisfying in more than one way.

Take that, stupid carp killers!

At the end of my stay in Kennewick, I decided to tweak my plans and carve out some time to go back to Fort Spokane.

Fortunately, my Airbnb hosts were flexible enough to let me do so and I booked a nice B&B in Davenport for a couple of nights.

I drove across the plateau, crossing quaint small towns and a lot of scenic wheat fields (check some great pics and a nice video of ‘The Palouse’ area by clicking here) and I arrived early afternoon.

I fished, caught nothing, saw nothing, but that was ok, I mostly wanted to heavily chum at the end of the day.

Back in the morning, at the crack of dawn.

Carp jumped all over the place for an hour while I was bringing my gear and setting up, nice. Then it all got quiet. Awfully quiet. For hours. And I started to speculate that maybe fish move here in small groups (while congregating close to the marina on the other shore).

That maybe they didn’t come overnight and had a hard time going though my heavy chum in the morning. And they couldn’t find my hook in the middle of such a pile of bait. Doubts, doubts, doubts. I finally cast a rod farther away in rather deep water.

I came back in the morning, kept blanking, seeing no sign of fish and started developing all sorts of doubts. At 2pm, I was shaking my head, ready to go explore somewhere else when I finally got a run. And landed a beautiful upper teen.

A Fish and Wildlife Department rep came to chat right then and told me I was the 3rd angler he ever saw fish for carp in this state in 25 years of service (he was quite open minded, asking plenty of questions).

The afternoon brought me six fish total, 3 of them low twenties, one of them a muscular 25 pounder, which dragged me all over the place. Big runs, big fights, beautiful sunset, I was happy. I chummed heavily again, hoping to attract a bigger school the day after. And this was probably (in hindsight) a big mistake.

And I got a run within minutes. And it was a stunning 29 pounder. RELIEF.

I landed two more fish before lunch time, all at the same distance. Then nothing all afternoon, sigh, plenty of time to finish my book. I was wrapping up, procrastinating as usual, went to dump the rest of my bait farther away, cleaned up and packed my stuff, finally started to reluctantly walk towards my rods to reel in and… I got a run!

A low twenty to finish my day (and my fishing time) on a high note. Life was good, all waiting hours quickly forgotten.

Remember that I said I started ‘with a bang’. The first fish I landed in Fort Spokane, the first fish of my trip, the first fish I hooked and landed in WA, was 31 pounds, no less. The average size at Fort Spokane was easily 20 pounds, I believe. Nice spot for quality fish. I might go back. ☺

When flying back from Seattle (two weeks after I started), I had a window seat and stunning views of the Columbia river, Wenatchee, Grand Coulee, the Spokane river, Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. It was fascinating to have a good look from above (the picture is taken while flying above Wenatchee). Did I use the word ‘spectacular’ a few times? Truly so.

I hesitated, but I didn’t fish in Idaho. Lewiston is there, but I only fished the Clarkson side, which is in WA.

I did spend a full day at Coeur d’Alene, but only to do some pleasant and relaxing sightseeing and hiking, then celebrated my successful trip in an amazingly good small Italian restaurant. Apparently, there are no carp in this large lake anyway.

WA was the 30th state where I caught fish in the US and the 29th state where I caught carp. Idaho’s turn will come, in due time.

Remote Blackstone River

By Dave Pickering

I’ve fished just about every place in the Blackstone River in my home state of RI, but the river in nearby Massachusetts is a different story. In RI, you can see much of it. It’s also quite accessible as it moves through urban areas of the state. In MA, the river takes on a different look. There it meanders through rural, dense, wooded and swampy areas with little access in a lot of locations.

I’ve always wanted to explore one of these areas in particular.

I knew if I could find my way along the river and find a suitable location to fish, I would find carp that have never seen a bait in their lives.

My goal on this discovery adventure would be twofold.

First off, find a spot to fish off the beaten path in this section of the river. Secondly, explore some create ideas of taking photos.

This would include action shots, still life shots, scale patterns, etc.

Almost a mile from where I started I found a suitable location to fish where the river widened and the current slowed, just the type of spot I was looking for.

But, the problem was that the whole bank was overgrown with high grass, so I had to cut a spot out to fish.

Initially, I found a place to park my car and proceeded to walk through some rough terrain of rocks and woods that sort of followed the river.

I carried very little with me….two rods, my rucksack, bait bucket and camera gear. You could not take a cart or barrow where I was going. I could barely see the river on the path I walked, but I had some idea of what it looked like as I saw glimpses through the trees.

Along my walk, the river was shallow, fast moving and had a lot of debris. No good. I was looking for places that had slow moving, wider and deeper water, so I kept walking.

While clearing a spot to fish, I noticed a small disturbance in the water right near shore. I peeked over the grass and saw what I was looking for. It turned out to be a mirror carp of about 10+ lbs., feeding on the bottom. Eureka, I found a spot to fish and I found at least one fish!

After baiting up the spot with maize and putting out my two rods which were baited with a kernel of maize and a white, pop-up artificial corn, I waited about half an hour and one alarm suddenly went off. It proved to be a good size mirror of about 12 lbs..

Maybe it was the one I saw earlier. I got nothing more on the initial first outing, but it perked my interest and I returned in the coming days and weeks for more.

To make a long story short, I ended up with 15 carp in six outings in my newly found remote spot. I caught a mix of mirrors and commons, something that happens in the Blackstone River.

Of those six trips here, my best day saw 5 fish on the bank. My worst day was a blank. My biggest fish in this spot proved to be a 17 lb. fully scaled mirror, a beautiful Blackstone River fish.

My second goal was to take a good amount of creative photos.

I did that using three different cameras. I used my cell phone camera to take a lot of the shots of me holding fish using the “voice shutter” setting. This is when you simply say “cheese” and the camera clicks. It’s a feature few people know they have in their camera settings.

I also used a Canon compact camera to take a lot of the close up fish shots of carp in the water, in the net, and with the bait in their mouths.

Finally, I used my Canon DSLR camera with an EFS 55-250 mm lens to take some action shots. I set the shutter to continuous shooting. This feature allows me to lock on and focus on a moving fish.

When I click on the shutter and hold it down, the camera takes many shots. Out of ten shots, I might have one winner!

Discovery 2019 was a success for me as it opened up a new spot for me in my repertoire of places to fish in the Blackstone River in MA.

I also found some new camera tricks. I’ll be back for more in this spot in the future.

American dream DaleHollow

By Steve Briggs

It was a trip that nearly never happened for so many reasons. Organizing and preparing for this was more stressful and more problematic than any of the previous trips we’ve ever been on, even at the airport when we finally thought it was all sorted and we had an hour until boarding, we found out that we needed esta’s to travel – we’d never even heard of them before but the Delta/Virgin staff at Heathrow were amazing and although it shouldn’t have been possible, Mohammed and the girl who’s boyfriend is actually a carp angler, somehow sorted it in time for us to board the plane heading for Atlanta and the USA!

Vulture Island looked the right place to start from

Once on the plane we could at last breathe a big sigh of relief and look forward to what was ahead. We were heading for Dale Hollow lake, an amazing venue in the south of North America spanning the Tennessee/Kentucky border, which covers and incredible 27,700 acres – but best of all, it contains loads of carp and even better than that, probably half of the carp stock is made up of fully-scaled mirrors!

People have been there and fished and I followed closely the fortunes of Alex Smith and Paul Hunt on their trips. But in relative terms the surface hasn’t even been scratched yet on what this lake has to offer, but we’d seen enough to know that we wanted get ourselves out there on those wild banks. Of course flying presents its own problems of what tackle we can take etc.

David Moore of Big Carp Tackle was a huge help and we were able to send bait in advance to them in the shape of Candy Nut Crush boilies as well as a few leads and an unhooking mat.

Bivvies and beds were going to be more difficult but Dave then told us that houseboats were available for rent and that might be a better option. As soon as he mentioned houseboats our minds were made up and that’s what we were going to do! Even that proved to be a big stumbling block as most were either booked out already or one that I paid for turned out to be a static mooring, which was no good to us.

With only days to spare we came across East Port Marina and they had one that we could rent. Dream Cruzin was 60ft long with four bedrooms and two bathrooms but it was ours if we wanted – and we wanted!

Having the house boat really made all the difference

We found a grain store to buy maize and everything else came from Walmart, which turned out to be not as cheap as I remembered, in fact nothing about this trip was cheap, well, apart from the maize and the fuel but we’d given up worrying about it by then!

Once loaded up on the houseboat we were given expert instructions by Fred at East Port and then we were on our way with me learning how to steer a 60ft craft as we went.

The marina is situated down a long, narrow creek and I really wanted to fish the main body of water, which I reckoned was around 22 miles away! Of course it took several hours but the lake and the scenery looked better with every passing mile, until we came to a couple of small islands in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t really know anything about the lake but here looked good, there was some weed around the margins and the depths looked okay and we had to start somewhere and this looked as good as anywhere.

Time was also pushing on so we tied the boat up on the island margins and quickly got the rods assembled. I planned to fish straight off the back of the houseboat and the Scope 9ft rods were made for situations like this.

The houseboat came with two canoes so I used one to get some bait out at close range and then just flicked the baits out from the boat.

With the sun disappearing I just needed a cup of tea and so I shut the door behind me to avoid the flies getting in. It was a warm sticky evening after a hot day and having air conditioning was a real luxury, but something made me walk out to the back and just out in the darkness I was sure that I heard a carp jump! Minutes later the sounder box was in meltdown and tea was flying everywhere!

Unfortunately it had already gone around a snag and after taking to the canoe I got my rig back but that was all. But I didn’t have time to feel down as that was just the start of a very eventful night! Everyone had told me that I’d have to bait up and maybe wait a day or two for the fish to move in and start feeding and yet by the following morning I’d received six runs, another fish was lost unfortunately but four were landed and only one of those was a common –the other three were all scaly mirrors! They weren’t big but it was never about the size it was about those mirrors and I’d seen some already!

First morning and our first sight of the Dale Hollow mirrors

All of the initial action had come from the closest rod just over the weed and I wondered about my judgment on putting a couple of rods deeper but as the sun started to rise the deeper rod went off and it was the closer rods that went quiet, typical wild carp really, coming to the margins to find food under the cover of darkness and retreating to the safety of deeper water in the day.

The day was a lot quieter than the night had been but late in the afternoon I did latch in to a jetpropelled long common of 34lb 8oz that nearly pulled my arms off!

It had been far hotter than I was expecting with temperatures reaching close to 40 degrees and too hot to venture out on the bank much but the fish seemed to like it.

The last run of the day was cut off, there were some really sharp rocks around and looking around the bank also told the story of what was beneath the surface.

A big angry common from the end of the first day

I thought I’d get away with 20lb mono but 60lb mono leaders were added to the last ten yards and that definitely made a big difference.

Other than that the set up was a basic one with 4oz inline leads, a longish hook length of 25lb coated braid and a size 4 Nash Brute hook, these were naïve fish so it was all about landing them once they were hooked.

The first fish were amongst the best fish I’ve caught anywhere

It was early in the trip but after all the stress leading up to this it was now about as close to paradise as we could hope for.

Our little island was deserted apart from us and actually seemed devoid of life entirely, apart from when a flock of vultures descended one day and stayed for a while. I’d only ever seen these in cowboy films and to see them so close was just one highlight of Dale Hollow.

We actually christened it Vulture Island after that as it didn’t seem to be called anything else. The great thing was that it was either a good holding area for the fish or more likely a good passing through area – maybe there were fish everywhere or maybe we’d just got lucky.

The refreshing thing was that we just didn’t know enough about the lake to know any more. It appeared that we were the only carp anglers on the lake, there may have been others on

Strength and attraction were the key factors

such a vast piece of water but we certainly never saw any. There were bass anglers as always and they were well kitted out with fast, shiny boats and several rods at the ready.

It always amazes me how close they have to come considering how much water is out there but they were all friendly people and skillfully avoided the lines while giving us a wave - so unlike their French counterparts who seem to enjoy picking our lines up at times!

The fish just kept coming! It could happen day or night and they would come in waves and one run would often bring two or three. The second day produced a further seven runs while third day went crazy with fourteen runs!

The great thing was that there were about two mirrors to every common and every mirror was absolutely stunning.

As nice as they were I did start unhooking fully scaled mirrors and just tipping them out of the net as there were so many.

Having said that, though, the bigger ones always tended to be the commons. I didn’t know if they were older fish or had just grown better? Very little is known about the carp as the locals don’t really take carp seriously. In a brochure we were given on arrival there was a list of the fish in the lake and the record for each species, but guess what – carp weren’t even mentioned!

I don’t know how they came to be in the lake in the first place or why there are so many fully scaled mirrors in there? Perhaps we don’t need to know, perhaps we should just be grateful such a lake exists.

Later I did get to meet a guy, who is regarded by just about everyone as the first man to catch carp by design at Dale Hollow and his name is Gilbert Huxley, a really nice guy who just went up to the lake for a holiday and thought he’d put the carp rods out to see what happened.

He caught carp and the rest as they say is history. Carp fishing is still very much a minority sport in the USA but is what makes it so appealing for us; a seemingly endless supply of carp and only a handful of anglers fishing for them.

The spots I’d started off with were still working fine and I hadn’t had to change much really. It was all settling in to a nice routine, I’d bait up every evening with a bucket full of maize, sweetcorn and Candy Nut Crush boilies, splitting it between the two markers and the action would vary between the two spots, invariably the close rods would be better at night and the longer spots during the day.

In the mornings I’d generally top the spots up with a few boilies but no more than that. I felt like the fish were coming to the area anyway and not necessarily for the bait I was putting in and so using more didn’t seem to be the way forward. I had the maize soaking in a big plastic box and Joan would cook a pot or two up every day on the cooker.

The houseboat was turning out to be the best decision we could have made. It was so comfortable and spacious – mind you it was meant for a maximum of twelve people so for just two of us it should have been spacious! The back platform was a perfect fishing station, although I did have to change from a rod pod to separate buzzer bars as they gave more space in the confined area and left more room to net and photograph the fish.

All was going great but on the fifth day the action did drop a little and only four fish came our way, two mirrors and two commons. It was still action that I would have pulled anyone’s arm off for before the trip but it was a definite dip. It could be just a slow day or perhaps they were giving me a wider berth? Time would tell but I did start to have a think about other possible areas to move to.

As it turned out the next day brought one less again, just three fish and now I was getting itchy feet.

Lips that were made for grabbing crayfish and swan mussels

Of course it could be a big mistake to move, we could end up on nothing and regret moving out of a swim that was still producing. In reality we were already happy with what we’d caught and more fish would just be a nice bonus but it would also just be good to see and fish another area of the lake.

As the action started to dwindle we thought about a move

Rods were reeled in, the boat was untied and reversed away from Vulture Island. I’d looked at a few spots with either binoculars or the drone and although I did see fish showing in different spots, for whatever reason they just didn’t look quite right and off we went in search of somewhere that looked the part.

We traveled a few miles back in the direction we’d originally come from but nothing looked right. Some parts shelved off too steeply or some were too shallow.

The beauty of 620 miles of bank and a boat to check it all out is that we could just take our time until we found something that we liked. In the end we tracked back on ourselves and crossed to the other side of the lake where we found another island.

It was a little different in size and shape to the first one but still had the important details, the right depths, weedy margins and some nice features either side, so it was just a matter of if the carp would come or not.

Nearly 28,000 acres and possibly the only carp anglers there

I baited in a similar way to the first swim, short range to the right just beyond the weed and longer to theleft where a spit of land formed a nice plateau going out in to the lake. It was more in the open than the other area

and that was noticeable by the wind and also by the extra boat traffic coming past, although it was Sunday and the day when everyone seemed to come out and enjoy Dale Hollow –apart from carp anglers of course!

That evening was strangely quiet for the first time. The boats gradually dwindled away until it was just us out there, but the surface remained quiet, as did the alarms – had I made a big mistake? For the first time I drifted off to sleep without being disturbed, it was a relief in one way but of course I still had that desire to catch. Even at that early stage of the move I did consider maybe moving back to Vulture Island.

I needn’t have worried at 4am the sounder box came back to life again and as I went out to grab the rod I could hear fish jumping out there – they were back! By the morning I’d landed four fish out of five runs.

I needn’t have worried at all and the nomadic fish were obviously covering distances in search of food and once they found it they got their heads down!

But what I caught were different, they were all commons for the first time and were of a higher average weight than those from the first swim, mainly up around high twenties.

So it was a totally different group of fish and another interesting part of the conundrum of Dale Hollow.

There were probably more snags than the first area and besides the sharp rocks there were plenty of branches and tree stumps down

there - I did bring one huge branch in that still had an angry common attached too and that certainly tested everything to the limit.

Also for the first time I found crayfish, the first one saw actually crawled out from the big branch I’d brought in but I did find my baits disappearing from the hair and so this area was a lot different to the first one after looking fairly similar.

All along the bank there were empty shells from a smaller type of shellfish as well as some more normal swan mussels and they undoubtedly form much of the natural food for the carp but of course crayfish are on their menu too

–

their thick rubber lips are a giveaway for that. When we got fish out of the sack to photograph them there was plenty of evidence of the crushed shells as well as the bait I’d been putting out.

After a quiet start it was business as usual

If we thought that the first swim was hectic then this one was even busier! As usual there were quiet times but when they moved in we certainly knew all about it and I did notice that when they were showing I could see fish jumping three or four hundred yards away too and I couldn’t even hazard a guess at how many fish were out there.

Sleep was hard to come by but what can you do when there’s so many nice fish to be caught. On the second island the commons just outnumbered the mirrors although as a rule they were bigger.

I couldn’t get through to anything really big, although the biggest caught so far from Dale Hollow is 46lb so if monsters are there they have yet to be caught, but that’s generally how it goes on those big, wild waters in the height of summer – I know it wasn’t the height of summer but with temperatures in to the high thirties it’s close enough.

In the last three nights that we had in the second swim we had a further thirty one runs! There was one fish I lost that I felt was a good one – you could tell just by the initial run and the power. This fish ripped maybe seventy yards of line from the spool before I could stop it and then just as I was gaining control the line just cut unexpectedly on something sharp and I did have the hump about that one!

On the final morning after another sleepless night of action I did bank another mid thirty common, which was the best of ten fish that night. Interestingly the baited spots didn’t work and one rod that I dropped really short just on its own produced nine of the ten runs.

I think that the crayfish had taken over the other spots as the baits were gone when I checked those rods. Over the nine days we had banked sixty six fish from seventy five runs, crazy action from start to finish.

In the end our time had just run out and neither of us wanted to leave. It reminded us of Cassien on a big scale and just the fact that we could do our own thing without having to see or rely on other people made more special.

Dale Hollow had been amazing and we’d love to go back again – albeit with a bit better planning next time. But this one trip opened up so many possibilities and we found out about other stunning lakes; some that hold big fish and some that only hold mirrors!

The possibilities out there are almost endless and we might never know the full potential of American carp fishing, but that mystery is what makes it so exciting. The lakes and the fish are amazing and wherever we went the people were among the friendliest we’ve ever come across – put all of these things together and it looks like we’ll be having more trips across the pond in years to come!

CAG Membership drive 2019

This Summer CAG, in appreciation of our loyal members ran its first ever membership drive! Any fully paid member as of August 31st 2019 (excluding CAG Directors) was automatically entered in a random draw with an opportunity to win some great prizes. The list of winners is shown below and all have been sent their prizes. Our sincere thanks to our key sponsors Deeper, Linear Baits, RidgeMonkey and Top Baiter for donating such great prizes!

Tim Marshall Deeper Pro + Package

Joel Harber Linear Bait Package

Paul Russell RidgeMonkey Headlamp

Chris Hall RidgeMonkey Headlamp

John Finney RidgeMonkey Headlamp

Fran Slasinski Top Baiter Package

Joseph Venable

John Torchick

Kirk Suedmeyer

Travis Carr

CAG Mirror Mug

CAG Common Mug

CAG Mirror Mug

CAG Common Mug

By Bojan Blazeski

Moving from Europe to the USA didn’t stop me from fishing, but I needed to adjust to these new conditions.

Georgia has a mild climate - soft winters and long hot summers, with lots of rain. The landscape is very fascinating too, with lots of ponds, lakes, rivers, and various attractive types of fish. All in all, I had discovered a wonderful place to fish.

One of my favorite techniques is Feeder fishing, which comes in very handy in Georgia.

It is one of the most effective techniques in fishing because you are not searching for fish, but instead luring them to you with precision casting and attractive feed placed in a small area.

Feeder fishing is all about precise finesse, constant casting and adding feed to the fishing spot. There is a big variety of feeders that you can use depending on what kind of water you are fishing in:

- Grip and square feeders that are usually used in moving waters like rivers, creeks or streams.

- Round feeders which are better when fishing in lakes and slow moving bodies of water.

- Long distance and bullet feeders that are optimal for lakes where you fish very far, so distance is essential.

In Georgia, I really enjoy the experience and thrill of catching large fish like carp, buffalo, trout or white sucker. While they may not be the most popular, they are strong, hard to catch and a true test of my fishing skills.

The average weight of a caught carp is about 10lb, but you can easily find some fish that are over 20 lb. Another bonus is that due to the mild climate in Georgia, you can fish carp all year long. In this article, I am going to share how I use feeder fishing technique to catch these fish.

Buffalo belongs to the family Catostomidae and can grow up to 3.5 ft long and up to 45 lb. The buffalo looks a lot like a carp because of their shared family. The main differentiating factor is the shape of their mouth. The buffalo has a similar amount of strength, fighting force as well as feeding behaviors compared to the carp.

White sucker, which also belongs to the carp family, by shape of body and mouth and the way they feed, looks a lot like European barbel, but smaller. It can reach up to 20 inch and 6 lb. It is also a very strong fighter.

Since the water at this time of year gets colder, I often choose smaller streams and creeks. They are much more challenging from big rivers and lakes, due to many fallen trees, branches and other obstacles that you need to overcome. This makes fishing much more entertaining and demanding. The tussle with a carp in these conditions is quite thrilling. With additional pre-feeding of fishing spots, the probability to catch them increases significantly. If you add to that with constant recasting, the chance rise with every next cast. There are challenges with acquiring carp fishing ground bait as it is generally imported and expensive.

That is why, I usually make the feed on my own. My preferred combination is corn flour and cornmeal mixed with oatmeal, grits, ground biscuits, sugar, salt, mix of bird seeds

with only a few teaspoons of powdered milk to make a feeding area more visible. I add to this also sweet corn and guinea pig or rabbit pellets. Depending on the time of year I add food coloring to dye feed in darker color (brown or black) in fall-winter and lighter color (yellow or red) in spring-summer.

The best late winter and spring bait for carp is sweet corn. Closer to the summer, when waters get warmer, bigger baits become more efficient like boilies and tiger nuts. My favorite are homemade sweet corn- poppy boilies. I make them myself in different sizes - between 10 and 20mm. I use the smaller ones for pre baiting and bigger ones as bait. Wherever the terrain allows, like flat bottoms with little snags or obstacles, I prefer to use method feeders. Fish tend to react better to this approach and give me the best chance to catch.

Proper equipment is needed to make sure that feeder fishing works well. You need a strong rods, reels and everything else that stands between me and the fish.

I mainly use feeder rods with “heavy” and “medium heavy” mark with strong tips, hooks size 4-8 and line with 0.20 mm and above.

One of my favorite terrains for winter and early spring fishing is Big Creek in Roswell, GA. That is a creek 25-30 yards wide with 5 ft depth on average. The part where I especially like to fish is around 300 yards from the delta with the river Chattahoochee. Late fall carps go in to the creek to spend winter and they stay there until spring and spawn time.

On a normal day, on average, you can catch 5-7 carp per person weighing from 10 to 15lb though I often catch carp over 20 lb too.

COMMON MISTAKE amongst carp anglers in U.S. is that FEEDER FISHING IS TOO “LIGHT” and that YOU CAN’T CATCH A BIG FISH with it and that is a myth. Any rod that is marked with medium-heavy, heavy or extra-heavy is strong enough to catch any size of carp.

BIGGEST DIFFERENCE is that FEEDER RODS give you MORE SUBTLE APPROACH, MORE PRECISION AND BIGGER VARIETY by changing cage feeders in different situations. Feeder rods are much lighter weight then regular carp rods so they are much easier to control. They vary in length and you can find them from 6.5ft to 13 t and they can cover every possible situation you can encounter when you are out fishing.

All of that being said, it’s not a surprise that from every year globally, MORE AND MORE ANGLERS ARE SWITCHING from other fishing techniques TO FEEDER FISHING. If you have not done so already - try it out!

RIGS: Basics

RIGS: Basics. No matter how you look at it, whether you are new to carp fishing or a seasoned angler, to consistently catch carp you need a consistently good rig. The method of presenting your chosen hook bait is probably the most important part of carp fishing.

UK carp anglers Len Middleton and Kevin Maddocks revolutionized modern day carp fishing when they invented the hair rig in the early 1980’s. Nearly 40 years later, there are many variants of their first rig. Not only that but advancements in hook link material, hooks, hook accessories, weights, and hook bait, to name but a few, has given us the ability to fool Mr Carp. Easy, right?

No. Not easy at all. I have been fishing for carp for some 30 years, and while some days it seems I can’t go wrong, other days I have had to adjust my rig or change it to something completely different.

Where do we start? Firstly, it is important that we understand how carp eat. Bottom, mid-water or surface feeding, it is all the same. They will suck in food, sift, reposition and wash it, chew it and swallow. Wait. Chew? Yes, carp have teeth in their throat. If our carp decides that the food is unsafe it will blow it out. This whole process takes seconds. The best we can do is to get a hook bait in to the carp’s mouth, then it is all down to your rig.

With the exception of a few set-ups, the best way to present your hook bait is away from the hook such that when the bait is ejected (blown out), the trailing hook pricks the mouth and you are in! Again, it’s not quite as simple as that but it is definitely a good place to start.

So let’s start with the humble hair rig. I will walk you through how to tie this, what you will need, and some simple mechanics.

This rig has helped catch me 100’s of carp, including my first 20lb Mirror Carp back in 1990. I wouldn’t go fishing without it.

Wayne Smith

What you will need:

Hooks - A dedicated carp pattern. I have chosen the Carp Spirit Size 6 Boilie Beak Point Micro Barb. Incredibly sharp out of the box, very strong, a PTFE finish and suitable for 14mm to 18mm baits.

Hook link - A soft, supple braid. In this case ESP’s Sink Link 15lb. I have used this for over 15 years. It is an incredible braid, sinks to the bottom and is easy to use. Fantastic stuff.

Braid scissors - Or quality sharp scissors.

Hook bait - For this I will be using a 14mm boilie.

Baiting needle - The Gardner Braid Boilie Needle is my tool of choice. As shown is 20 years old!

Hair Stops - See notes.

Rig terminal items - Gardner Tackle #8 Covert Rolling Swivel or Gardner Tackle #8 Covert Rolling Swivel and Gardner Tackle Covert Easi Clips.

I use all of these items consistently as I have full confidence in each product. There are lots of companies that offer similar products. I appreciate that finding quality carp tackle in North America is not always easy.

Step 1

Cut 12-14 inches of braid. Make an overhand loop in one end. You should aim for the loop to be 3/81/2 inch long. For reference; this is the hair. Cut the tag end of the loop.

Step 2

Pass the baiting needle through the boilie.

Step 3

Put the boilie needle through the loop of the braid.

Step 4

Pull the loop through the boilie.

Step 5

Insert a hair stop through the loop and gently pull the boilie up to the hair stop.

Step 6

Take the tag end of the braid and pass it through the eye of the hook, as shown.

Step 7

Position the boilie approximately 1/2 inch above the curve of the hook. See closing notes. Step 8

Wrap the braid AWAY from the closure of the hook eye. This is vitally important. If you wrap the braid against the closure you will compromise the braid leading to it, essentially, cutting.

Step 10

Moisten the loops with a little saliva and pass the tag end of the braid through the back side of the hook. Wrap the tag end around your finger, grip the hook in your other hand (or use a pull tool) and tighten.

Step 9

Wrap, in tight loops, up the shank of the hook 7 or 8 times

You have just made the Knotless Knot! This knot is paramount for most rigs that you will make from here on in.

Step 11

At the tag end of the braid, form a Figure 8 Knot. Aim for the loop to be about 3/4 inch long.

FINISHED!

With the exception on the next few stepsAttaching the rig to your mainline.

You have tied your first hair rig!

Before we continue, let us consider the length of the rig. If you are fishing over a gravel patch or a hard bed your rig length should be 6 - 10 inches. If you are fishing over silt or weed, you need to allow for the lead to sink in to the silt or weed. In this case the rig length should be anywhere from 12 - 18 inches.

The set length of the hair can also vary. As noted earlier, I have set this at 1/2 inch from the top of the hook.

These lengths, from experience, are a good place to start.

How the hair rig works. A carp will suck the hook bait in and, maybe not immediately, feel that something is not right and eject it (spit it out). Where the hair joins the knotless knot it acts as a hinge. The bait passes the hinge, pulling the hook behind it. Thus pricking the carp’s mouth, causing it to bolt (move away from the feeding area), further setting the hook with the weight of the lead.

I will expand on this subject in later articles.

Tight lines!

Step 14

Tie the swivel to your mainline (using a 4 turn Grinner Knot) and attached the Easi Clip. This allows for changing your rig quickly.

Attach the rig to the clip and you are all set.

North America’s Longest Running Carp Organisation with a Dedicated Mission:

• To gain acceptance of the carp as an exciting and challenging sport-fish.

• To become better carp anglers, assist others and encourage them to join us.

• To treat the carp with respect, promote the release of trophy-size carp & encourage others to do the same.

• Most of all: Go fishing, Share with others, and have Fun.

As a member you will also be adding your voice & support to help CAG continue its efforts to work with State & other organizations to increase the recognition for carp as a sport fish to benefit the angling community

Member Benefits Include:

• Full CAG Forum Community Access

• Quartely NACA Magazine*

• Member Benefits

• CAG Apparel & Merchandise

• Fish-Ins, Events & Competitions

• New Member Tackle Pack

*inc Printed Full Color Special Edition

Membership is only $20 / Year (+ a one time $5 joining fee) which includes you, your spouse & any children under 18 living in the same household

Georgia Fish-In

By Barry Shildneck

GA Fall Fish-in, held Sat., Oct 5th at West Point Lake.

Not many carp were caught, probably because of a long drought and low water conditions, plus an extremely long stretch of unseasonably hot weather (90+ degrees, into October).

We had more than a dozen attendees, but fewer than a dozen carp on the bank, and no big ones. We ate well (hot dogs for everybody, with some left over), and enjoyed a lot of bank talk. Hope to do better fish-wise, next outing.

July 30 - August 1, 2020

Along 37 miles of the St. Lawrence River St. Lawrence County, in Upstate New York, USA

• Open to Juniors aged 11 - 18

• Fish as an Individual or as a Team of 2—4 anglers

• Four categories: Boys and Girls each in Ages 11-14 & 15-18

• Trophies & Cash Prizes & Medals

• Individual, Team & Grand Champion

• 1st day — Registration, Opening Ceremonies & Carp School

• 2nd day — Fishing, fishing, fishing

• 3rd day Fishing, Pizza Party, Closing Awards Ceremony

• Over a ton of carp caught and released each year !

CT Carp Open Tournament Review – 2019

The 2019 CT Open Carp Tournament in October provided another challenging and exciting event with anglers enduring a second year of wild weather!

The Big 4 tournament, sponsored by the Fishin’ Factory in Middletown, attracts anglers from near and far to fish the tidal sections between Hartford and Haddam Connecticut.

After the peg draw on Monday evening the 19 one and two person teams would fish for 76 hours from 8 am on Tuesday until noon on the Friday. 5 teams took advantage of the option to move to another open swim on the second morning.

Wednesday night saw a change in the weather with a high wind advisory promising 50 mph plus gusts, 1-2 inches of rain and possible thunderstorms sweeping through the region.

Instead of the tide going out as normal the wind held it back resulting in several swims being flooded.

Fortunately everyone survived the wild conditions and some even benefited from the carp deciding to go on the feed in the midst of the storm!

There were plenty of fish caught during the tournament but only those over 22lb qualified to be weighed in for the Big 4 which resulted in some anglers not making it on to the leaderboard.

In the end no one managed to break the CT State Carp record to land themselves the $25,000 bonus but the winners managed to net themselves over $10,000 in prizes for their efforts!

1st Place: Blake Carlson & John Norton 118lb 9oz Peg 29

2nd Place: Marcin Targonski 116lb 8oz Peg 12

3rd Place: Radoslaw Kula 110lb 14oz Peg 35

Big Mirror: Jimmy Sneed & Chad Harper 18lb 2oz

If you want to find out more about the 2020 CT Open Tournament be sure to follow t he Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/313001709231412/