A desire satisfied…sort of

For some time, I’ve been wanting to try out the bank sticks I bought earlier this year.  I also haven’t tried traditional bolt rig carping in my neighborhood lake since early this spring.  This afternoon was so pretty, I decided to give both a try at the same time.

I took two of my 10’ carp rods, one rigged with a semi-bolt rig under a Polaris self-adjusting float, and the other with a straightforward bolt rig.  Since the wind was blowing left to right, I walked down a 100 yards or so to where the lake turns to the right, thinking the fish would follow that wind.  I fished one rod (the semi-bolt, float rod) to the right side, probably ¾ of the way across to the other side (where the wind was blowing to) with a bright yellow popup. The other rod (straight bolt rig) was fished to the left, about halfway across.  This left rod I decided to dedicate to artificials.  I started with a yellow Evolution Carp Tackle corn stack on the hair.  Both rods were rigged using blowback rigs tied on #6 longshank hooks with a split shot an inch down the hook link from the hook.  I chummed three pouchfuls of prepped deer corn over each hook bait, set both rods up in their bank stick/bite alarm combos, and waited for the carp to start feeding in my two baited areas.

I was encouraged when, within 10 minutes or so of casting out my right rod, a nice carp breached pretty close to where my hook bait was positioned.  Shortly thereafter, I saw several other breaches nearby.  In fact, I saw (or heard) numerous carp breach all around the area I was fishing.

Every fifteen minutes I would catapult a half pouch of deer corn over each rod.  After a half hour, I checked both hook baits.  The popup had obviously been gnawed on by the hard-shelled folk.  I decided to change up to a Green Lipid Mussel boilie on the right rod, and catapulted a half-dozen into the vicinity to hopefully prime the bite pump.  I tipped this boilie with a bright pink fake maggot cluster for added visibility.  I was hoping this particular flavor of boilie might appeal to either carp or catfish.  I also changed up the bait on the left rod to a yellow corn ball.

Over the course of a couple hours, I changed baits every half hour or so.  In addition to the bright yellow popup and the GLM boilie, I also tried some 10mm corn-flavored boilies on the right rod.  On the left rod, I eventually changed the yellow corn ball to an orange corn stack.

I repeatedly saw bubbling around my right rod, so I know carp were feeding in the vicinity.  Never saw any bubbling near my left rod, but that rod was in a bit more chop, so it would have been difficult to make out anyway.

Over the two hours, I never got the screaming run I was hoping for.  The left rod never so much as bleeped, and the most I saw for the right rod was the float knocking and bobbing here and there—most likely as turtles attacked the bait beneath.

To allay my boredom while waiting for a bite, I threw out a handful of dry dog food to see what would come to feed.  The first to come were, surprisingly, not the hard-shelled folk, but small channel cats.  The turtles did show up shortly thereafter, but not in the numbers of a couple of weeks ago.  Eventually even carp got in on the action, but they were very spooky.  One would come up for a dog biscuit, then veer away when it saw me sitting motionless on the bank.  Once I saw what looked like a pretty-good-sized channel cat breach and inhale a pellet—I’d say around 3-5 pounds.  Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my catfish rod today, and I didn’t feel like re-rigging one of the carp rods, so no channel cats today.  I reckon that if I had had my Ugly Stik and slip float rigged with punch bait with me, I could have caught a good half-dozen.  The channel cats have a characteristic way they feed off the top, and there were quite a few in the area, though I suspect most were quite small.  I continued to throw out additional handfuls of dog food every 5-10 minutes, and watching the feeding frenzy kept me quite amused, despite the lack of carp bites.

Earlier this spring I did a bit of experimentation with hair rigs using #6 hooks versus using #10 hooks with the bait (sweet corn, prepped deer corn, or plastic corn) directly on the hook.  What I found was that, in this lake at least, the hair-rigged hooks did not produce nearly as well as the smaller hooks with the bait directly on the hook.  The number of bites was significantly and noticeably less with the hair rigs.  Not only so, but the turtles really seemed to zero in on the 2-4 kernels on the hair--less so with a single kernel on the smaller hook. 

While I enjoyed trying out my bank sticks and alarms today—and I really like the portability and ease of use vis-à-vis a rod pod--I think I could have banked 3-4 carp minimum fishing with a puddle chucker float and a #10 hook fairly close in.  Fishing a single, float-rigged rod is so much easier to manage than carrying two big, heavy rods and bank sticks.  I have really come to enjoy float fishing with my 12’ crappie rod with its ultralight spinning reel and 6-lb. test mono.  Since the carp are, on average, small (3-4 lb.) in this lake, playing them on the ultralight outfit is a ball as well.

As autumn comes into full swing, I will continue to fish for both channel cats and carp as the temps drop and the leaves fall.  My first two carp early this spring came on the float on a day that was so cold and windy my hands were aching from the harsh wind, so I have reason to believe I can continue to float fish with some success as winter approaches.  As for the channel cats, I will continue to fish for them with slip floats and punch bait until they become inactive or unfindable.

One other float-fishing technique that I’d like to try again works in tandem with chumming trout chow or dry dog food on the surface.  Since this type of chumming (that I generally do to keep the turtles preoccupied on the surface so they leave my submerged suspended or bottom baits alone!) attracts both carp and channel cats, I found by experimentation on one occasion that fishing dough balls made from squeezed bread worked quite well at catching the carp and catfish swimming around under the floating chum.  Further experimentation is called for…

Still hoping for a longer (dawn ‘til mid-afternoon) session on one of the lakes where the 20-pounders swim.  I’ll have to take a vacation day during the week to make that happen, as weekends are ALWAYS too busy to afford such a luxury.