Lake Erie July Session

It had not rained more than a few sprinkles in our area for 7 weeks...until last night. And that much needed and long awaited rain overnight affected the fishing today.

I did manage to catch a small catfish early on this morning, but that fish was followed by several hours of no fish, no bites, and no screamers coming from the BFS indicator carp alarms.

But I kept plugging away at it. Casting and re-baiting. Casting and re-baiting.

And the fishing gods rewarded those efforts with a nice mid-teens common carp, which is one of the cleanest, brightest, most vivid commons I have ever had the please of landing.

Mid teens carp

The picture of this particular fish illustrates some interesting things that I would like to expound on a little bit.

While I did manage to pose the fish in some good lighting to show off the nice scaling and coloring on the fish, I should have posed the head toward the camera more. In this shot the tail is pointing more toward the camera. If the head had been pointed toward the camera more effectively, the gill plate would display better.

Notice how my hands are placed under the fish to support it's weight, and notice how my fingers are tucked away and not placed inside the gill plate in any way. A carp's gill plate is very sensitive. If penetrated with a hand, pliers, grippers, etc. it's easy to damage the fish. Damage to the gill plate can cause bleeding and might even kill the fish. This is something to be avoided, which allows the fish to continue growing and hopefully be caught again someday by another angler. That is my goal with every carp I catch. Provide good care and release them back into the water.

I zoomed in closer on this picture using Microsoft Paint. I have to admit that
my fingers are really too close to the gills when posing this fish. While my index
finger is not technically penetrating the gills, it's a little too close for comfort.

It can take several years for carp to reach 15 or 20 pounds in weight. For trophy sized carp - those over 30 pounds - it can take up to 15 years to grow to that size. To catch a trophy sized, once in a lifetime fish; carp need to be treated with respect when being caught and released. And if we are lucky, they will reward us, a friend, or another cap fishing enthusiast with a new personal best in the future.

A few hours later another fish graced the landing net. Although somewhat smaller than the first, I was thrilled to see it after a very slow fishing day.

Single digits common carp

And here is another picture of the first fish being returned to the water.

I try to return the carp to the water gently, allow it a short time to revive, and then swim away on it's own.

A word of caution: Please do not "throw" or "drop" carp back into the water. Carp are heavy fish and dropping them from 3 or 4 feet above the water line can cause them to hit the lake or river bottom if the water is not deep enough to support their weight. This is hard on the carp and can cause injury or even death.