Michigan Carp Anglers Group July Social Fish In

Today I traveled to a new water for the first time and fished from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. I fished a spot with no pre-baiting and no prior knowledge of carp being caught from that particular spot on the lake.

When I arrived the temperature gauge on my vehicle said it was 65 degrees, but today's session turned out to be my hottest day of fishing this year with temperatures hitting 99 degrees.

The view at "the spot"

It took quite a while to get a fish on the bank, but I broke the ice with this nice looking channel catfish

Another view of the channel catfish. I didn't weigh the catfish, but I am sure it exceeded 10 pounds

As a member of a carp fishing club, I target carp exclusively and sometimes manage to catch some other nice fish like channel catfish or small mouth buffalo.

Other days I fish all day and struggle to catch the target fish no matter how long I fish, how much bait I use and what techniques or other rabbits I try to pull out of the hat to put a fish in the net.

Today definitely falls into one of the "other" day category.

My first fish sounded the alarms at about 8:30 a.m. and I managed to bring it to the bank in short order. But I do not have a picture of the fish because before I could bring it into the net, it managed to flip and flop a few times and perform a self-induced "quick release" technique preventing me from posing the fish and making it famous for a few minutes on my Facebook page and carp fishing blog.

Then the frustration really set in. I had a string of 8 consecutive carp runs and 8 consecutive hook pulls. I tried fighting the fish with a tight drag and then I tried a loose drag. I tried new hooks, although my original hooks were quite sharp and very adequate. Nothing worked to put some carp in the landing net.

I was beginning to think the "skunk" was on. And then it happened...another carp hit the end of the line slamming the alarm hard.

I tried the loose drag technique again, but the fish wouldn't give in. After a few minutes the carp managed to find the lily pads to the right of my swim and lodged himself there. He wouldn't budge.

One of my fishing friends, David, came to the rescue. He felt so bad for my carp skunk and run of bad luck that he waded into the water while I kept pressure on the fish. David found the fish in the lily pads and as he stood in chest deep water relieved the lily pad snag and the fish was swimming freely again.

I landed the small carp in the photo below a short while later. I am sure there are some bigger fish to be caught and perhaps the hottest day of the year isn't the best day to fish this venue. Early fall or spring might produce very different results since the battle with weeds and lily pads would be reduced dramatically.

It was smaller than I hoped, but the scale and color patterns were flawless.

Overall it was a hot day, frustrating at times, but rewarding at the end. David saved the day for me. That is one of the advantages of fishing with friends. We can bail each other out from time to time.