Anticipation turns to turtle despair turns to carp hopefulness.

This afternoon I had a few hours before dark, and I was excited to return to carp cove to fish a different section that is a bit deeper than the end I'd fished previously.

The view across today's Carp Cove deeper section

The view to the left of my fishing spot on Carp Cove

As usual, I was fishing with my crappie pole (12', light action), ultralight spinning reel and 6-lb. test mono. Fishing a loaded puddle chucker (clear plastic float with an integral weight to make it easier to cast and speed rigging. Today I tried, for the first time, some Drennan float stops. They're little rubbery bits that thread snugly onto the line, one on each side of the float. You can slide them along the line to adjust the float's depth as desired, but they stay put and they don't crimp the line like split shot can. I really like them--glad I got 'em. Fished about 4' deep with just one split shot about six inches above a #10 Kamasan "Animal" hook baited with two kernels of sweet corn. Catapulted prepped field corn around the float to attract carp. Unfortunately, all I seemed to attract today was the ubiquitous hard-shelled folk. They were constantly pulling the float under to no avail and one even bit off one of my hooks. After a couple frustrating carpless (but turtleful) hours, I was in despair about fishing this lake for the rest of the summer. In my frustration, I decided to re-rig with a hair rig and use artificials for awhile. That seemed to keep the turtles at bay, but neither did I get any runs.

As it was getting closer to dark, a margin-patrolling carp spooked when I made a subtle movement, perched as I was at bank's edge about two feet above the water level. That led me to do something that made the rest of the evening much more interesting. I decided to throw a few handfuls of deer corn in the margin in front of me in about a foot or so of water, and see if any margin cruisers would be bold enough to come in and feed if I kept very still. Within about ten minutes I began to see swirls in the area, and, eventually, carp. They would swim up the my pile of bait (about two feet in diameter), but they would veer off when they saw me sitting there, even though I was completely motionless. More and more came, and eventually there were a good half dozen or so making passes at the bait pile, but very shy and skiddish. I decided to plop my Evolution Tackle corn stack and two maggot clusters in the middle, just in case one of the carp got greedy and picked it up. I continued to pile in more bait, gradually putting in a can's worth of sweet corn and the rest of a gallon bag of prepped deer corn. As it got darker, it was harder an harder to see the carp, but they got bolder and bolder as the light waned. I really amused myself watching these carp, and, in the space of a half hour there were a dozen or more converging on my baited area. If I had been more concealed, I think there would have been a feeding frenzy and that bait pile would have been mopped up in a few minutes.

This gave me the idea that maybe my approach has been flawed for this particular venue and season. Since it was so easy and effective to attract numerous carp into the margins, I think next time I wlll try more of a margin ambush approach, doing just what I did tonight, only a little farther off shore so they won't be so skiddish, and I'll have to find a spot where I can hide behind a tree or some other foliage. I should be able to either freeline or float fish (better bite indication) in the margin over a bed of sweet and deer corn with good success if tonight's parade of hungry carp can be repeated reliably. Didn't see any huge specimens, but I don't expect to in this lake. Besides, even a 3-pounder gives a good account of him or herself on that crappie pole!

As I wrap this up, I am reminded of my last trip to the lake where the 20-pounders swim. I fished for a half-day with both the method and Polaris floats at some distance out--say, 30 yards or so. I got no action at all on these rods, even though I was regularly catapulting goodies, renewing my method ball, and trying different baits and approaches. I did catch three nice carp--one about six pounds and the other two around 10 apiece. All three were caught about 10-15 feet off shore fishing sweet corn under a float over catapulted deer corn.

Maybe there is something to this margin fishing thing after all.