Scouting a New Spot

A couple of weeks ago I headed out to a new spot with high hopes. It was a river location that feeds into Lake Erie near the park where I decided to fish.

With the warmer weather and relatively shallow waters, the moss and weeds were very heavy. Although much heavier than I like, recent reports regarding state record fish being captured in this location convinced me that it was probably worth overlooking the weeds and giving a shot.

I started the day with rods casted near, far and medium distance. After an hour of no bites, I tried 3 in close. Then I followed that with two at far distance and one medium. Although I could see fish, the bites were non-existent. As luck would have it, I was seeing spawning fish just a few feet from the bank. They apparently had other things on their mind than eating my panko, field corn and butternut offerings.

Just I had almost packed up everything to leave, I had a nice run on my right rod. It also happened to be the rod farthest out in the river just past what I believe was the edge of a big bed of weeds.

I was rewarded with a fish weighing just under 20 pounds.

Caught on three pieces of flavored corn and a piece of fake orange maize.

I cropped this one a little tighter to show the size of the mouth a little better

I was casted out at least 70 - 80 yards in the river and although there was no current to speak of it still took quite a while to land this fish. An audience developed on shore consisting of several others who always hoped to catch a carp there, but never had the luck or skill. At least now they know there are some higher quality fish to be had from that river spot.

There was zero boat traffic while I was there. It probably had something to do with the 3 feet depths, which is pretty shallow for any motorized boats of size. I do think this spot is pretty popular with kayakers at various times of the year.