A little float-fishing experiment…

My only chance for a little bank time this week came this afternoon after church.  A beautiful, sunny day in the 50s.  As soon as I got home, I quickly changed into fleece layers, put together a tub of groundbait consisting of graham cracker crumbs, bread crumbs, sugar, chili powder, and most of a can of sweet corn (saved a little to use for hook baits), and collected my fishing gear on the back patio.  Slipped into my knee boots, then slipped my heavy fishing coat over my fleece jacket—just in case it got colder than expected—and I was out the back gate in a flash.

Since during last week’s outing I had all my bites on my float rod (ultralight spinning outfit), my other two carp rods had already been re-rigged with puddle chucker (medium clear plastic) floats rigged waggler style (attached bottom only).  My plan was to fish all three rods on the float, using groundbait balls to attract fish into the vicinity of my three rigs.  I fished an Evolution Carp Tackle yellow plastic corn stack on my left rod, a CC Moore Live System boilie (a dough bait boiled so that it becomes firmer) tipped with a kernel of white plastic corn on my right rod, and sweet corn on my middle rod.  To get things started, I molded nine golf-ball-sized balls of ground bait, then tossed three to each of my three floats as close as I could manage by hand tossing.  I also catapulted one pouch of prepped (soaked and boiled until tender) birdseed/cut corn/whole corn mix around each float.  I also threw out a half-dozen boilies near my right (boilie) rod to give the carp an opportunity to have some free boilies and acclimate to this new food.  After getting all three rods positioned over spots I have been baiting pretty regularly for the past several weeks, I checked my watch—it was 3:32 PM.

My first take came on my middle rod within a few minutes.  As the float started to move off, I grabbed my rod, tightened up, and attempted to set the hook—nothing!  In fact, worse!  I snatched my rig into a nearby oak tree branch about 15’ off the ground.  Fortunately for me, somehow my rig suddenly fell from the oak branch it hit and came down without much trouble or the need to re-rig—no end tackle lost!  I quickly re-baited and re-cast, and, before a couple of seconds had elapsed, my float took off again!  This time I was able to get a good hook set, and, after a nice battle, netted a decent-looking fish a couple minutes later.  Safely on land, I removed the hook from its mouth, then weighed it in the net: 7 lb. 4 oz. in the net, which, when the net’s wet weight (1.5 pounds) was subtracted, meant a beautiful specimen a little under 6 lb.!  Once again, fishing my baited spot yielded another above-average specimen for this lake (average is 3-4 lb.).  In fact, after baiting almost daily in the same three spots and fishing them over several weeks, I have caught around a half-dozen specimens, all between 4 and 8.5 lb.!  When I went to take a picture, I found that this fish’s dorsal spine had gotten caught in one of the small openings of the net.  After briefly trying to loosen it by hand, I realized that I would have to cut the net to remove it.  While I was grabbing my scissors a few feet away, the carp flipped and flopped, and succeeded in securing its dorsal spine even more securely in several more net mesh loops.  It took several minutes of determined net cutting to finally free that serrated spine.  Once done, I snapped a couple pix with my phone, then gently lowered it in the net and released it back into the margins (the shallow water near shore).  It stayed in one place for a moment or two, perhaps getting its bearings, then slowly meandered off toward the safety of deeper water.

The rest of my fishing adventure can be told in few words.  As usual, I used my smart phone timer app to alert me every fifteen minutes, when I would toss out another ball of ground bait and catapult a half pouch of seed mix over each float in an effort to keep the fish in the area and feeding.

All three of my floats dipped, bobbed, and even partially submerged at times.  I had several other takes on my middle rod, none of which resulted in captures.  I did hook one for a few seconds, but then the hook pulled.  I got one take on the left (yellow plastic corn stack) rod, but was unable to hook that one either. No solid takes on the boilie (right) rod.

As it got darker and darker, I eventually had to affix, using tiny braces-type rubber bands, 2” glow sticks to each float’s antenna to be able to see them in the fading light.  I fished until just before 6 PM.  I got one more take on my middle rod just before leaving, but, again, no joy on the hook set.

I did have a fascinating encounter just after sunset, but before total darkness.  Throughout my fishing today, from time to time, I could see some kind of water mammal swimming to and from the same spot on the near shore about fifty yards down and to the right.  It looked too big to be a muskrat, but it was far enough away that I couldn’t be sure if it was a nutria or an otter.  Just as the encroaching darkness was almost complete, I saw my aquatic friend swimming toward my right rod’s float.  As it got closer, it became obvious, both from its size and elongated shape, that it was indeed an otter.  I have been seeing otters in this lake here and there for the past five years.  At any rate, I suspected that it might have seen my glowing float and was moving closer to check it out.  Even though it was quite dark and I was sitting motionless on the ground, I know it saw me, because, at a distance of 30 yards or so, it stopped dead still in the water, waiting.  After a minute or two of checking me out, my suspicion was confirmed, as it then swam up to my glowing float and grabbed it.  At that point I kind of barked/hissed at it, as I did not want it taking a chunk out of my float while trying to determine if it was edible or not.  On hearing my noise, it immediately submerged and, I surmise, vacated the premises.  A little later as I was bringing in my rods, I saw it swimming across in front of me from right to left near the opposite shore.  Judging from its comings and goings from the same spot throughout the afternoon, it must have a den on the near shore, as I kept seeing it swim out from the same spot over and over, taking various headings with each trip out.

What did I learn from today?  I had 3 or 4 takes on my sweet corn rod, and only one on the fake corn stack.  That argues for sweet corn as a superior bait vis-à-vis either fake corn or boilies—at least on this day (but perhaps also true for this time of year).  I also learned that it is a bit harder to set the hook reliably when float fishing.  When the carp grabs the bait and really takes off, one can usually tighten up and set the hook successfully.  Today’s takes were fairly timid, with the float slowly submerging and moving off—I missed at least three of these, which is not the hookup rate I’d like to see.  I was using blowback rigged hooks on #6 Korda longshank hooks that seemed to be quite sharp by the fingernail test, so who knows?  Maybe on such timid takes, I need to wait until the fish really moves off with the bait before attempting to set the hook.  More testing and experimentation called for!

Well, at least I netted my first December carp of this year (and hopefully not my last!).  Hopefully this week I can keep a little bait going in every day and keep those above-average sized fish hanging around my fishing spot.  A nice little respite on a lovely Sunday afternoon before resuming the busyness of the work week!