Summer of 06, i spent a few afernoon hours fishing Onondaga Creek, i had 2 lines in the water, with little action (small bait stealers, worms). I saw something swimming downstream toward me. Thinking it might be a muskrat, i watched it approach. Suddenly i saw that it was a CARP with its mouth out of the water, sucking air!  Some 20 min later i saw another Carp coming down stream heading toward the lake, behaving the sameway. This time i had 1 line ready & cast a little in front of him. As the bait sank, the carp dove down towards it, but   resubmerged several yards downstream. This CARP, like the first 1 continued swimming with it's entire mouth out of the water!!  It was NOT skimming anything off the surface!!  Have you seen anything like this?? The fishermen @ work think i was making up this TALL TALE!!      CHUCK  :)

Life member since 04/05/1989. Samuel J.

Was there anyone barbecuing nearby? I know I've gone into a trance over a nice steak on a grill. Or ribs. Or burgers. Or.. or............


There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

 To Stonecrusher, that's a boneless pork shoulder on my rotisserie smoker. Over mulberry wood.  Sweet dreams.   Does anyone know where to get hair rigs for carp? I can't seem to find them, or instructions for tieing them myself. Any clues would be greatly appreciated. Those carp may have been feeding on algea or plankton that you couldn't see.

 

       GOOD FISHING GL

Instructions for tying hair rigs :

1) Tie a small loop at one end of a length of snell material of choice.

2) Pass the opposite (untied) end of your line backwards through the eye of the hook, pulling the line out through until the small loop you first tied is close to the bend of the hook (depends entirely on the size of the bait you plan on putting on the hair).

3) Holding the hair end so the line stays along the top of the hook shank, bring the open end back around the eye of the hook and wrap it close together and tight back down the shank of the hook (working your way towards the hook point), all while keeping the hair on top. Six wraps will hold, I usually use 10-12.

4) Now you wrap twice back up towards the eye again and pass the end of the line through the eye of the hook (for the second time, so you might want to consider line size and hook size in order to make this easier) and pull tight. This is also called the "knotless knot" for obvious reasons. After you've done it once or twice, it gets pretty quick and easy to do. Also makes easy walleye multiple hook rigs for worms and stinger hook rigs for minnows, or quick strike rigging for pike and musky.
There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

Most likely they were getting oxygen from the air.  I imagine, though I'm not positive, they have an air bladder like gar and bowfins and can attain oxygen in this matter when  the oxygen content is low in the water which occurs in slackwater areas during hot periods.  This is also a good indication that the "more advanced" or recent fish can not comfortably function in the same area (bass, crappie, sunfish).  I usually try to move to an area  with current or deeper holes when pursuing these other fish when I observe this activity.

Well, unless you're talking a moving water so polluted and stagnant you could set it on fire (ala the river in Cleveland of the 60's), it isn't likely. Carp are not a "less modern" species akin to bowfins and gars (and the description modern species covers all the vertebrate fishes, I believe, which would also include coelacanths), bowfins being a much older species than just about all of them and the last surviving member of it's family. More tolerant of higher water temps and lower oxygen, but "less modern"? Your theory would also depend on their air bladder having a duct in order to somehow get the oxygenated air into it, and as far as I know none of your examples does. They would be trying to wash oxygenated surface water across their gills.
There is no greater fisherman than "the guy here yesterday."

I guess no one does seem to know about this.  I always saw them in moving water.  And thought perhaps they were feeding on insects.  Even though I could not get close enough, to see if that was the case.  They did look like they were sipping something of the surface. Not gulping air.
Life member since 04/05/1989. Samuel J.

the ones i saw doing this where sucking some kind of small bugs off the surface.

                         moose