Carp Fishing Social at New Venue

My friends David and Bill, members of the Carp Anglers Group, met up this morning with plans to spend the day at a local water that hasn't been fished heavily for carp (if at all by a C.A.G. member besides Bill and I).

Bill and I explored this spot on the Raisin River in the fall of 2015 as part of "Discovery Month". I caught a couple of mid-teens carp and Bill caught a catfish tipping the scales in low double digits. We vowed to come back and fish the venue again someday. With some of our other favorite carp fishing spots heavily inundated with spawning carp who aren't much interested in feeding on panko, chicken feed, and cream corn we decided to give this venue another shot to show us what carp it holds.

The fishing spot

I arrived at 6:30 a.m. with David and Bill joining me in short order. We had lines in the water a little before 7:15 and it didn't take long for the carp to start making the alarms sing the familiar tune that announces to the world, "Carp on."

The first couple of runs resulted in lost fish. But I finally hooked a small 2 pound channel catfish around 8:30 a.m. David caught a catfish and a carp during this same time frame.

I caught a couple of smaller carp a little while later. The carp were small enough to leave me wondering where the bigger fish might be hiding.

Small common

Slightly bigger small common

A little after lunch time a much bigger, crafty and veteran of carp of the Raisin River decided to feast on our panko ground bait offerings flavored with some peach flavoring.

19 pounds 6 ounces

The 19 pounder was a post-spawn fish and marked up quite a bit from the spawning activities being engaged in recently. But this fish proved to me that there could be 20 pounders (or maybe a little bigger) lurking in this new water.

The it got quiet for a while.

Then the rain came.

And then a few more carp decided to grace our net, weigh sling and pose for a Facebook picture.

This isn't the greatest picture because it was taken during a light rain. The lens on my camera phone fogged up.

David's wife caught a nice 16 pound carp to round out my day of fishing before heading home when the rain picked up even more.

I am sure David will post a copy of it on Facebook for those that are friends with him.

In the final analysis the day was a success. We caught fish in numbers and two with decent size. I caught 6 carp and a catfish. And that's good enough to bring me back again to fish here again.