Carp Spawn And Affects On Bass

[HOIST-N-HAWGS]

Wondering if anyone else has noticed on smaller bodies of water when the Carp are aggressively spawning the bass seem extremely spookey and hesitant.

[WRB]

Wondering if anyone else has noticed on smaller bodies of water when the Carp are aggressively spawning the bass seem extremely spookey and hesitant.

Carp normally spawn after largemouth bass spawn, about the same time as bluegill spawn; 68 to 73 degrees. LMB spawn about 62 to 67 degrees, so some conflicts could occur. The buglemouth carp can be 20 lbs or more and they are egg eaters looking for bass nest to raid, that is the reason bass are spooky when a school of big carp come around.

All the fry become a food source for the predators; bass, bluegill, crappie, catfish and carp.

Tom

[sdoug805]

Once the carp showed up at my one bass fishing hole last year that was about it until they were out of there.

[HOIST-N-HAWGS]

Thanks for the info WRB!

Water temps were 60* by 3pm. This pond normally puts out hefty bags, only one LM caught in 8 hours. There were a ton of floaters/dead 4" bait fish from perch, shiners and crappie. The Carp were rolling over/belly up on flats and rocks, they were others flying completely out of of the water. This happened to me last year on another small pond were the LM seemed non existent.

[DP82]

I've seen thousands of Carp spawn for miles on the river the other day. Which brought me to this thread. Post spawn funk plus all the banks being torn up from carp made fishing real tough. Was hoping someone had a solution..lol

[Bluebasser86]

Normally, if I see carp spawning, I leave because the bass never bite around them. I had a rare exception this year when I had a 4+ and my BIL caught a 5+ out of the edge of the grass the carp were spawning in. Only thing I could think is the carp were running spawning bluegills out of the grass where those big bass were waiting for them.

[Turkey sandwich]

They were everywhere today, it felt like.  I was prefishing a new lake for a kayak tournament coming up and it seems like they were everywhere I wanted to be.  Weed beds right along the edge of a channel swing?  CARP EVERYWHERE.  Fingers are crossed this is over in two weeks.