Showing posts with label freshwater bonefish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freshwater bonefish. Show all posts

Saturday, June 5, 2021

8 Tips for Detroit River Carp Fishing

After a slow outing last weekend fishing from shore on the Detroit River, at a different spot, my expectations for today were hopeful but realistic. Luckily, things improved. 

On the hottest day of the year, so far, the carp bite also heated up. I ended a 7 hour session early with 13 fish and a new Detroit River personal best at 26 pounds. The better fish were in the first 45 minutes and they got smaller as the temps heated up.

Detroit River Carp Fishing

The fish above is my new personal best from the Detroit River. At 26 pounds, I am very grateful to catch such an out-of-the-ordinary large carp from this river spot.

Detroit River Big Carp

The fish had obvious signs of recent spawning activity with some redness, minor injuries and two missing scales. This river warrior was very leery of being netted as well and is one of the most difficult to net I have seen in several years of carp fishing.

The Detroit River provides many options for catching some large lifetime best sized fish from walleye, sturgeon, muskie, carp, sheephead, pike and more.

I'll also add some 8 tips and observations about fishing the Detroit River for carp to help make your carp fishing efforts more enjoyable and successful:

  • Average size of Detroit River carp are not very large. 
  • Based on my catches the past 6 years, 12 to 14 pounds is the average size for this area. 
  • The river fish in this area will wreck you pretty quick if you're not paying attention. 
  • There are snags and some decent current in this particular park. 
  • Fishing the river requires an acknowledgement that some tackle will be lost and some hook pulls will occur.
  • Some rookie fishermen will snag you because they try using 1/2 ounce leads and don't police their lines very well.
  • I'd budget 15 bucks a session on lost hooks, leads, swivels, fake corn, etc.
  • You use twice as much pack because to catch numbers you need to recast fresh pack every 25 to 30 minutes.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

From Bluegill and Bass, to Common Carp

When I was a young boy we had a farm pond on my family's property and I spent many afternoons there catching bluegill, bass and occasionally a catfish.

Fishing is inexpensive entertainment for people who had very little money to spent on traditional entertainment like movies, restaurants and traveling for family vacations. People now think nothing of $12 (per person) for stadium seats at the movie theatre, $25 for dinner (per person), $10 for a 6-pack of locally brewed craft beer, but for someone growing up in a farm family in the mid-1970's spending money on those things was unheard of...so we fished. We fished a lot.

The only direct cost to the 6 year old me involved the time spent getting a shovel from the shed, finding an old coffee can and asking my grandpa to join me in our favorite worm-digging bed behind the chicken house where the rain ran off the roof and the red wigglers were always plentiful. (A single hook would last all summer long.)

As a kid who counted everything from the number of fence posts in a particular field as we drove by, the number of tractors I saw between our house and grandma's on the way to Sunday dinner, to the number of airplanes I saw on a Saturday afternoon and yes the total number of worms dug with grandpa on Sunday after church; I was serious about worm hunting. Our record worm find was 105 in about 15 minutes. My grandpa made worm digging much easier. There is something to be said for his bigger boots, bigger biceps and stronger back compared to my smaller size and strength that made the search so much better.

I didn't worry so much about the size of the fish we caught, but of course I always wanted to catch the biggest possible. We ate the fish we caught. Mom had a rule, "You catch it, you clean it." The bigger fish were much easier for me to clean. By big, I'm talking adult palm-sized bluegill and 2 pound catfish. Big from a farm pond, but not big by a river size at all.

My bus driver liked to talk about fishing. Catherine, and her husband, Clyde, spent most Sunday afternoons creek fishing in various local spots. She talked about perch, catfish and carp. Hearing her stories were the first time I knew there was fish called carp.

She caught carp with hominy, corn, grubs and even worms. And from the sounds of it, carp were pretty big fish. I remember asking my mom and dad once if we could try creek fishing for carp, but they were not supportive. To them, the farm pond was fine.

It was almost 40 years later before I actually saw my first carp. I was fishing alone when another local fisherman had a fish on and asked if I wanted to reel it in.

I ended up landing a 16 pound mirror carp. The biggest fish I'd every caught by at least 13 pounds!

I took the information I learned that day and headed back out on my own 2 days later. Within a few minutes of arriving to the spot and casting out, I had another carp on the line. That fish weighed in at about 14 pounds.

My first carp
 And from that day forward I have been a carp fishing fool! I have always had a love for fishing, but catching carp is much more exciting.

Carp are pretty smart. They don't fall for plastic lures, or for worms on a hook and bobber float set-up very often. They are leery fish and seem to spook easily so the tactics required offer a challenge that goes farther than the "flip and rip" style of fishing used to catch bass.

Landing a carp on rod and reel takes some finesse. A double digit pound fish doesn't give in easily. They will go left, go right and every other way looking for an escape. Snags are popular destinations and if one is close by they will find it, resulting in a break off or "hook pull" that is a common frustration for carp fishermen.

I used to watch a lot of fishing shows on ESPN. They would be fishing for tarpon near Fort Myers, peacock bass in Costa Rica, bonefish in the Florida Keys, or redfish in the flats of Tampa Bay; and I was so, so jealous. "Some day" I'd say, "I'm going to do that." With carp, someday came a lot sooner.

I've heard some people refer to carp as "fresh water bonefish" and since fresh water is everywhere, that means I don't have to drive to Florida or fly to Costa Rica to catch exciting sport fish. You can catch carp in a large variety of states, rivers, creeks, lakes, reservoirs and even ponds.

Here are some more pictures of my "red neck bonefish" catches.

20 pounds

12 pounds


24 pounds