Nice fish, Mo! Thanks for not over dressing, lol!

I went out and tried to catch some fish on Friday. It was only in the 90s so lots of people were using the lake. When I went the prior lake and it was 100 plus, it was only me and a kayaker on the whole lake. Temp is a funny thing.

Anyway, Friday I put the boat in and headed to one of the many fish feeders and cast a crankbait. Bam! a good hit, great fight, then I saw I'd hooked a common carp. I assumed I'd snagged it, but when I netted it, I had to pull the trailing hook out of it's mouth. ??? ya know? I'm guessing it was probably about 6#, but i'm a fisherman, so you guys know it was somewhere in between a minnow and a great white shark. That's how this day began. I retied and had to replace the O ring on the back hook because it was bent to hell getting the hook out. A couple of casts later, I set the hook and it was big. I'm in the back of this cove in about 3.5 feet of water, & I'm nearly 100% convinced I've snagged another carp. The fish wasn't particularly concerned. I've spooked them in the shallows before and they can really take off when they want, but this one wasn't too worried. I'm watching my line gently move side to side. I mean, yeah it's pulling me and my little boat, but not as much as I would expect and the weirder thing was it was swimming to shallower water. Maybe this fish is mentally, handicapped. I finally see the tail and there's my crankbait sticking out of the meaty part just before the fin part begins. I'm fishing w 10# cabellas flourrocarbon and the distance between the lobes of its tail are longer than most of the fish I've actually caught in that lake. I'm thinking, "oh wow, this is going to take a looong time." While maintaining a tight line I motor the boat around the fish driving it to deeper water. I'd kind of thought I'd net this fish w/in 15 minutes because I'd seen it's tail. That was wrong. The only reason I saw the tail is because the fish was over a yard long and had swum into less than 3 feet of water. Once we'd hit 4 feet deep I didn't see the fish for a long time.

If I'd had the presence of thought I'd have checked my watch to see how long it would take, but I didn't. This battle went on for a long time. How long? A couple began watching me and got bored and left. Some of my hair grew greyer and more fell out. The sun circumvented the globe at least once... alright, that last one may not be true. I felt like I was catching a swordfish that wanted to stay down. I could see the 15-20 feet of line we were trading off abraid as the battle waged. I was fairly sure the hook would pull out of its tail, or the line would break, or the snap clip or O riing would pull free. I thought about tightening down my drag, but the rod was bowed and you just don't want to tighten a little too much and bust off, so although I touched the drag star, I refrained from tightening. We did several runs, where the fish pulled 15-20 feet of line before I could coax it back in. I kept thinking how pissed I would be if it broke off and took my lure and I expected the lure to tear out the skin on the fish any moment. Finally, I saw the tail again and after another ten minutes I put the net in the water. Mr fish took offense at that, but in another five minutes I tried to net him again. No luck, he was much bigger than the fish that were supposed to fit in this net. Finally the fish was tired out enough that I got the first third of the fish into the net and then curled it's body enough to get the next third in and I lifted the net out while holding the hoop, because on the last huge carp I'd caught, it broke my handle.

As soon as the fish hit the seat in the boat, the lure fell out. I took it to the dock and had one of the staff take a picture of it. I feel bad because I snagged it, but that was a great way to spend 45 minutes to an hour. I didn't weigh it, because, the last white amur (grass eating carp) I tried to weigh, I accidentally killed when the fish's weight pulled the scale tearing its gill cover and its gill. I didn't measure it because, I wanted a picture and then toss it back in. The rest of the day was pretty good with bass and channel catfish hitting inline spinner baits.

Nice, Rodrigo! Great story and nice pic...I sure am glad you shared this adventure with us today!

Sweet Rodrigo! What a pig...great catch!

Diffinately a brute!!! congrats. It looks alot bigger than the 25lber I caught years ago.

Diffinately a brute!!! congrats. It looks alot bigger than the 25lber I caught years ago.

Today, I caught a 4 pound Largemouth Bass below a dam.  I only caught one fish yesterday too, however, it was a 6" long Tubenose Goby, which I accidently snagged.

We went out on sunday, and i cought a four and a half a three and three two pounders all on a heddon top water bait also i cought a nine pound flat head catfish on the same lure..I have never seen or heard of a catfish being cought on a top water ..My fishing buddy has never seen or heard of this eather..Have any of you ever done or heard of this ??? JOHN

Caught another 4 pound bass today.  This time, however, it was a Smallmouth Bass.

Way ta go, guys! John, I have never heard of that either, but then again I never heard of catching them on spinnerbaits until I saw it for myself! My next day out on the pond will be Friday and then out on the lake (Blue Marsh) Saturday morning....

Thanks turnip , ya if someone would of told me that i would asked them if they were drinking LOL.............JOHN

Did you get the lenght on that carp. I caught a 33 incher years ago on 4 lb test line. I know what you mean about a fight. I kept yelling for somebody in my group (who were on the other side of the pond) to bring me a net. Nobody believed me that I had this giant on. Only after the carp worked all the way around to where they were at about half an hour later and it broked the surface. Boy did their eyes get big when they saw it, that someone scambled to get a net. It still took a few trys to get it in the net, but we finally did. If it wasn't for the 10 ft rod that I was using I am sure the line would have broke.

FFFisch, I didn't measure the carp. I caught one a while ago (see below) it weighed 38 pounds according to my scale. I'm guessing the latest one was larger, it was really fat and I'm estimating around 40 inches.
 
 I caught fish today also. I went to a pond at my son's camp. Last fall and late winter we moved 108 fish from this pond to the new one below, hoping that the old one would begin producing some larger fish. It was a great day. I probably boated 15 in about 1.5 hours all on crank baits and nearly all were over the old average of 10.5 inches long. This pic is from 3/16, my son holding the largest of the day 17 inches.  I didn't measure anything today, but I'm guessing I was pretty close to 17 inches on 3 fish.

Way cool!!!!!!!!!!!!

Went fishing on evening of 7/24. Caught a Green Sunfish, [1] Largemouth Bass, A Crappie and roughly a 4 lb Channel Cat. Hooked another Channel Cat about the same size but the hook came loose from its mouth..

Had 2 channel cat on/ landed one / lost a second that was hooked // and missed 2 more that swirled at my artificial baits near the bank. Wonder why they were so anxious to hit Artificial? Maybe I'll go back tonight with live bait and see if those Catfish bite again.

Go get'um, Steve!

scasteel,
  I have been noticing more cats biting artificial baits too...not a problem here either...they'll hit a crankbait like a charging bull.

Rodrigo, those big carp are a blast. I usually catch mine fishing for crappie on 4 lb test. I hooked a regular carp 2 years ago in my boat over at Indian lake. It was a porkchop. I only had a small net and it would not fit into it when I tried to net it. Luckily for me another boat had stopped to watch my battle and he had been saugeye fishing and had a big net. I worked the carp over to his boat and he netted it for me and also had a scale. Carp weighed in at 17 1/2 lbs. I thought that was pretty good considering I was using a crappie rod and 4 lb test.

mo65... I was using an 1 1/2 in Shimey shad ...NATURAL COLOR. I had those 4 cats strike at it. // Hungry I guess.
I have a 2 in. shad in same color might try that next time I'm there and see what happens.

FFFisch... Sure is fun to catch a large fish on small tackle. I caught a 12 1/2 lb. Northern Pike in 1984 on a 6 1/2 ft UL rod and 6 lb test line.
Took me 20 minutes to wear it out and net it.

scasteel,
  It's getting close to the time of year I catch channel cats on crankbaits...here are a pair I caught last August on a Bomber 4A in Tennessee shad color.