Diary Of A Carp Mad Man

[MassBass]

I have put together a decent season catching carp. Im dialed in and have confidence in my rig and my approach. I have not consistently used a spinning outfit in years. Im all about casting gear for bass and pike. Today was my second time using my new spinning combo and I have landed 3 carp with it. I know how to use spinning reels, but I need to work on my accuracy. I think a spinning reel is kind of a better "trap" than a round reel. Thats basically how this fishing is, you set a trap and stand back, wait for the take and the run and then battle the fish in.       

[MassBass]

Hoping to start the 2016 season tomorrow, the river will be very high but hopefully the chumming technique will bring some fish into my line. Im gona start off using slightly different terminal: a 1 oz bank sinker on a slider between two beads. With the spinning tackle I started using at the end of last year, a 3 oz egg sinker is kind of cumbersome. The bank sinker should resist rolling in the current also. It would be great to start the season with a success rather than a skunk.  

[N Florida Mike]

I snagged a 23 pounder last year.It was 32 inch.

[jr231]

No carp this year? Cool thread.. 

[MassBass]

On 11/23/2016 at 1:57 PM, Yeajray231 said:

No carp this year? Cool thread.. 

I caught a good number of carp this year before i went south to school. I did make another thread called the carp garden or something. I very much enjoy the carp. 

[scaleface]

I made  a topic about this rig last spring  but being this thread has been bumped and I'm bored to death on this below zero day I will post it here . 

 

 I've always been intrigued by the hair rigs Europeans use but could never rig one up .One day this past spring while carp fishing , I decided to come up with something easy that will work the same way .First I needed a bait holder , so i just used a small  treble hook with the barbs pinched down to cause less damage . Then an octopuss hook above that .Its the main hook ,the  one that catches the carp when it rejects the bait then bolts . I needed the octopuss hook stay in line , so I slid a piece of tubing on the shaft . The tubing was stripped off a piece of electrical wire .The line is simply slid through the tubing then the  eye of the hook and tied to the treble .Slide the tubing onto the hook . The tubing must be small enough to stay on the shaft and not slide up over the eye of the hook .A bobber stop holds it all together . Its a lot simpler than it sounds and only requires one knot . It worked great .  Sometimes the fish were hooked with the treble other times only the single .The picture is shown with a piece of bread but the real bait I used was a mixture of Wheaties and commercial fish food . Any dough-ball will work . 

 

 To use the rig I employ a heavy weight and keep the line tight . Its a bolt rig . The carp feels the weight  after it sucks the bait in , panics and bolts hooking itself in the process . I put the rods in good holders , well anchored .The first day using it I was catching carp consistently at a campground . People started taking notice and soon there were half a dozen other people fishing around me and none of them caught a single carp . 

 Heres the components and the finished rig .