A friend of mine sent me over this pic he took while spending some time at Raystown Lake. Folks were feeding the carp with some pellets bought at the marina store. Seems like these pellets make pretty good carp bait because it started this little fish feeding frenzy and soon a few ducks decided they were going to get in on the action as well. I normally don’t associate carp as being aggressive feeders.
I do remember catching them on the Conestoga river, along with catfish when we were kids. We would make up dough balls by wetting some bread and then kneading it for a few minutes until it could be formed into a pasty substance that could be balled around our hook. Or we would simply take a hook and thread on a couple kernels of corn. Dough balls and corn make great carp bait, but you’d have to be patient while they slowly played with your bait until they decided to take it. This picture startled me when I saw how these carp were attacking!
These days I spend more of my free time fishing for bass, but I have caught the occasional carp on a tube or other small soft plastic bait while bass fishing. If I do hook one it is when I am dragging my bait along very slowly. Never have I caught a carp on a fast or even moderately fast moving bait. Maybe it was because I wasn’t using fish pellets!
Call it carp bait or call it duck food, not sure who won this particular battle!
Credit for these pictures goes to Dave Keller. Dave is a long time friend, an avid photographer and he runs a blog site at davekellerblog.com
What a great picture. Got a caption? Leave it in the comments!