Carp is a fish of the carp family. Carp is a wild (river) form of carp. In the CIS it lives in calm rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. Carp are bred in paid ponds. Carp is an omnivorous fish: plant plankton, all kinds of larvae, leeches, plant seeds, and so on. They catch carp with a donk, a fishing rod, and feeder carp gear.
The following baits are used: potatoes, corn, peas, pasta, carp boilies, crawlers and dung worms, maggots, crayfish. The commercial size of carp is 30 cm. It is a valuable commercial fish.
Carp comes in several varieties: scaly, naked, mirror.
scaly carp
naked carp
mirror carp
Carp is a heat-loving fish, and it is bred mainly in the southern regions of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the North Caucasus. Some races of carp were able to acclimatize in the northern regions.
Carp is very unpretentious, and small ponds and quarries are usually used for its breeding. Carp grows quickly and, under favorable conditions, by the end of the second year of life reaches a weight of 600-800 g. In especially feeding reservoirs, carp weighing 600 g can be found already in the first year. Carp does not reach the same weight as carp , and its maximum weight does not exceed 10 -12 kg. In summer, carp stay almost exclusively in thickets of aquatic plants. Prefers silt or clay soil.
Carp spawning occurs in small grassy areas in May-June at a water temperature of 16-19 degrees. In the northern regions, spawning is often interrupted when cold weather sets in.
Carp is omnivorous. Carp use their sense of smell and taste to search for food. Carp feed at the bottom of ponds and lakes. In the heat of the moment, carp can stand at half-water or even near the surface. The natural diet of carp mainly consists of crustaceans, worms, insects, larvae, protozoa, small mollusks and plant foods such as algae and seeds of aquatic plants.
There are reports of fish fry being found in the stomachs of carp, but it can be assumed that they were dead when they were swallowed by the carp. It feeds when the water temperature is not lower than 14-15 degrees.
how to catch carp?
Carp is a cautious fish. Carp stay at a depth of up to two meters in the calm water of ponds, lakes or river reaches. Large carp move alone or in small groups of fish of the same size. Carp loves warm water with a sandy and muddy bottom, an abundance of aquatic grasses and underwater shelters, such as sunken tree trunks and snags. During the day, carp move along the same “paths” between resting and feeding areas.
In mid-summer, carp feed from the evening, when the heat subsides, until the morning sun. At this time, carp bite intermittently all night, but best at dawn. During periods of drought, carp can even burrow into the mud and remain there for several weeks.
In winter, carp accumulate in deep holes, and, oddly enough, continue to lead a fairly active lifestyle. In any case, local fishermen have repeatedly said that, having discovered a winter carp, they catch it with a vertical spoon with a fry or a bunch of worms attached to a jig head hook. And they don’t turn purple, but they actually catch! And this suggests that the carp continues to feed naturally, giving preference to animal baits in winter, and not disdaining fry. Carp feed in winter, which means you can catch them.
Fishing for carp brings a lot of emotions. This fish is careful, strong and very beautiful.
Carp fishing.
How to catch trophy carp. Tackle for carp fishing, see photo. Choice of nozzle. Feeding. An interesting fact: in reservoirs rich in natural food, carp may not pay attention to the bait. In others, where carp are systematically fed with cakes and grain, on the contrary, they can be caught with a fishing rod as much as you like. There are reservoirs that occupy an intermediate position: among them there are those in which carp are caught only shortly after spawning, and there are those where they can be caught throughout the post-spawning period, until the water temperature is below 14-15 degrees. Therefore, before you start fishing, you need to familiarize yourself with the lifestyle of carp in a given reservoir.
They catch carp with a fishing rod quite successfully. Preference should be given to a fishing rod with a reel, which allows you to use a thinner line and cast the bait further, which is especially important when fishing from the shore.
The fishing rod, the thickness of the fishing line, and the size of the hook must be selected in accordance with the size of the carp that are found in the reservoir. If you catch small carp, weighing up to 1.5-2 kg. or more, then you need a rigid fishing rod, fishing line with a diameter of 0.3 mm. and hook No. 8-10.
If the reservoir is inhabited by large carp, reaching a weight of 5 kg or more, you need a rigid rod, a fishing line with a diameter of 0.5 mm and a hook No. 12-14. Sometimes when fishing for carp with a fishing rod among aquatic plants, when it is undesirable to let the carp go far, you have to use an even thicker fishing line. However, you should not take a fishing line with a large margin of safety, although carp is not as careful as carp, yet the number of bites when using thick and coarse fishing lines is noticeably reduced. To make the fishing line stand out less against the background of aquatic plants, you can take it green. A large, bright float also repels carp.
To successfully catch carp with a fishing rod, you need bait or, in extreme cases, groundbait. Cake, porridge, steamed grains, boiled potatoes, etc. are used as bait.
Millet porridge, undercooked potatoes and pasta, corn kernels, etc. are used as baits for catching carp. Less commonly, they are caught with an earthworm, a burdock worm, or an omentum. Which bait is more profitable is determined by trial fishing for carp on a fishing rod.
You can catch carp with a fishing rod from a boat or from the shore. It is advisable to install the boat in clean water and throw the bait either to the edge of aquatic plants, or into the clearings between them. In this case, after hooking, you can take the carp to a clean place, which makes fishing much easier.
From the shore, carp are caught with a fishing rod in the “windows” between aquatic plants or thrown directly behind them: in clean places far from thickets of vegetation, carp is very rarely found. If the shores of a pond or lake are densely overgrown with plants and it is not possible to find convenient places for catching carp with a fishing rod, then it is advisable to prepare the area in advance by mowing the grass or ripping it out with an iron rake.
When fishing for carp with a fishing rod, the depth of release of the float is adjusted so that the nozzle lies on the bottom, and the load does not reach it slightly. Only in very swampy places, in which the bait sinks into the silt, is fishing with the bait hanging above the very bottom.
The bite of a carp is transmitted in different ways: sometimes it takes it carefully, like a tench, sometimes it confidently sinks the float and moves to the side. The moment of hooking is determined experimentally - it varies depending on the size and type of bait, the satiety of the carp, etc.
Fishing for large carp is not easy: it is only slightly inferior to carp in strength, and fishing is almost always complicated by the presence of aquatic vegetation. When fishing, you should try not to let the carp go far and not drag it straight through the thick of plants, but let it walk in circles until almost completely tired.
The best time to catch carp with a fishing rod is in the morning, starting at dawn until 8-9 o’clock.
Catching carp on a donk
The season for catching carp on a donk begins in the spring, around the end of April, as soon as the water warms up a little. At this time, the most promising for catching carp on the Donktsu are clayey edges under steep yars, underwater pits with reverse flow and snags. The place is chosen so that the nozzle lies under the edge. In large rivers, carp fishing should first begin in small tributaries.
They catch carp on a donkey in the spring from the shore or from a boat. The bait used is a crawler, a bunch of earthworms, pearl barley shell meat, crayfish neck, various porridges (the most popular is mamalyga corn grits), and maggots. In recent years, carp boilies with fish or shrimp flavoring have been successfully used.
Spring fishing for carp on donka continues until the flood. With the first rise in water, you can catch carp well on a bottom in shallow bays, where the fish head in preparation for spawning. Carp spawn from late May to June. Anyone who happened to see a picture of the spawning of this heroic fish will remember it for the rest of his life. The reeds and flooded bushes are shaking, splashing, gurgling, and here and there you can see the wide bronze backs of carp. This is where it is, the triumph of nature!
Around the end of June - beginning of July, the carp spawned and now feeds greedily, gains weight, and no heat is a hindrance to it. Nowadays, carp roam on quiet reaches with medium depths, in backwaters and deep-water bays. It is here at the bottom that colonies of pearl barley and zebra mussel shells are located - the main natural food of carp. You shouldn’t forget about snags and steep yars either - carp always hang out here.
You can find the carp's habitat on a quiet morning. Carps splash, play and warm their sides in the pink rays of the rising sun. Having discovered the place where the carp plays, the angler has every chance of success. The right choice of place for catching carp on a donk, maintaining complete silence, well-chosen tackle, appetizing bait and groundbait are the basis for success.
There are different ways to catch carp on a donkey. Carp is a schooling fish. In schools, carps are distributed according to age, size, and weight. However, schools of carp are usually small, except in late autumn, when they gather for the winter. The intensity of the bite of carp, like other fish, depends on a number of conditions, primarily on the weather. Before a sudden change in weather, when the temperature drops, the bite weakens or stops altogether. However, experienced fishermen know that carp bite well even during a thunderstorm, as well as in cloudy warm weather with light rain. Prolonged heat or prolonged bad weather is unfavorable for carp fishing.
A guarantee of successful catching of carp on a donk is the previous feeding with corn flour, boiled potatoes, millet, chopped worms, in short, whatever you will use for bait. This needs to be done the evening before catching carp on a donk, so that in the morning you are already fully armed at the fishing spot. Precisely in the morning, since the evening bite of carp is almost always worse than the morning one.
Carp is a strong fish. To catch carp on a donkey, you need to be well prepared (rod, fishing line, hooks). It is better to catch large carp with a rod equipped with a spinning or multiplier reel with a friction brake, which allows you to “tire” the carp. When catching such cautious and distrustful fish as carp, a leash is of great importance. Unfortunately, many fishermen tie the hook directly to the main line. However, the best carp catch is still guaranteed by a thin, inconspicuous leash, barely inferior in strength to the main fishing line.
To catch carp, you need to carefully prepare the bait. It should be very diverse in your arsenal. Don't limit yourself to just one type of carp bait. Place your main aim on a plant-based attachment. The grains used are steamed rye, barley, wheat, peas, corn, beans, and boiled potatoes. For carp fishing, choose the largest grains; they are best boiled in lightly salted and sweetened milk. Small grains require small hooks (No. 6-8 according to the domestic classification), 2-3 of them are placed on a hook.
You can catch carp on a donkey and with a fishing rod from a boat in snags, in holes under steep yars, catching bronze beauties right from their “home”. Or you can catch carp from the shore, on the stretches with modern carp gear . Properly prepare the place in advance, choose it so that the nozzle rests on the edge or ledge on the slope in depth. Both of these methods are quite effective, and below we will talk in detail about each of them.
Closer to autumn, with a serious cooling of the water (usually at the end of September - beginning of October), the carp goes deeper, closer to holes and snags.
Despite the fact that carp and its close relative carp have been heat-loving fish all their lives, successful carp fishing on a donka is possible almost until the freeze-up. If you choose the right place, even in November, when there is sometimes snow along the banks and night frosts reach minus 10-15 degrees, carp continues to be caught in the pits and is very active.
Groundbait: composition and recipes
There are a huge number of options for bait mixtures. The fisherman needs to constantly improvise, selecting the best combinations of components, adapting to the fishing conditions and preferences of the fish in a particular body of water. But there are also proven recipes that can be used as a basis.
The most popular and simplest recipe is corn-based bait. Has the following composition:
- canned corn - 1 can;
- steamed pearl barley – 1 kg;
- cake – 1 kg;
- chopped worms – 0.5 kg;
- breadcrumbs – 1 kg;
- crushed vanilla shortbread cookies – 1 kg.
It is also allowed to add peas, wheat, old boilies, semolina, and millet to the bait. Pour the water from the cans of corn into the mixture. This simple composition allows you to get a cheap but effective bait for carp.
Recipe for black bread crackers
A very simple but effective bait, which is made from black bread crackers and a few other ingredients. The recipe for its preparation is as follows:
- Brown bread crackers are thoroughly crushed.
- Add milk powder in a 1:1 ratio. Do the same with soy flour and egg powder.
- All components mix well with each other.
- Add one tablespoon of sugar and salt to the resulting dry mixture.
- At the reservoir, the bait is mixed with dry clay, preferably red. Then moisten with water until viscous.
Read the Fishing Report on the Pra River in August
Millet and semolina recipe
This bait takes a little longer to prepare, but it is no less effective. And for some fishermen it is the basic one on the basis of which they make their experiments. Her recipe is as follows:
- Pour barley, semolina and millet in equal parts into a saucepan, fill with water and put on fire.
- Cook over low heat until fully cooked.
- Add a few tablespoons of unrefined vegetable oil and a couple of tablespoons of liquid honey to the resulting combined porridge.
- To make the mixture slightly dusty, add breadcrumbs to it.
- Now the bait should sit, cool and thicken.
carp fishing tackle
Look around and you will see a huge range of widely advertised carp fishing gear, and if you open any magazine, you may get the impression that you need to purchase the most expensive models of carp gear. There may also be an opinion that it is necessary to have very strong gear for carp fishing, which is completely wrong. The main thing is to collect the optimal set of gear for the body of water where you are going to catch carp.
carp rods
If you are going to invest in some carp fishing gear, then a carp fishing rod is worth considering. A good carp rod will serve you for many years. The most common mistake when buying a carp rod is what type of rod to buy. Walk around any small pay pond and you'll find plenty of three-metre, fast-action rods, often with no need to cast further than 50 metres. Add a power reel to the mix and you can see why some fishermen lose so many carp when landing them. Let's expand on this topic a little.
The bend test is the load required to bend the rod tip 90 degrees relative to the butt. Although professional fishing rods are often marked with the weight of the load being cast rather than with a bend test. Don't confuse this with the weight of the carp that can be pulled with this rod.
Action is the way a rod flexes, in general a rod with a “slow” action will (theoretically) flex evenly from the handle itself. This is the best rod for landing large carp, but it is difficult to cast as far and as accurately as a rod with a "fast" action.
A rod with a “fast” action bends only in the upper third. This allows you to cast the bait more accurately and further (with the correct casting technique, of course), but you will have to be careful when fishing for carp. As always, there are exceptions to the rules. For example, if you are fishing for carp with heavy feeders, then a rod with a “slow” action will give you a longer casting distance than a rod with a “fast action”.
Don't forget about the quality of the rods. To achieve maximum casting distances, you will need a rod with a quick tip return to its original position. This means that the rod straightens very quickly, without vibration of the tip. Previously, this was achieved by using thicker rod blanks, but today this result is achieved by using higher quality blanks - for example, those that are English and American. But by and large, all this applies only to fishing at extreme distances. And although some of the best modern fishing rods give you both the ability to cast very far and a soft action when fishing for carp at a short distance, then they will not be very cheap.
Something else to take into account is that if you are fishing for carp in a large body of water, a higher test does not mean a longer cast. Many anglers can cast a bait much further with a 2 Lb rod than with a 3 Lb rod, of course using the correct casting technique.
If you are a novice carp angler and are going to catch carp in small or medium-sized bodies of water, a rod with a “slow” action and a test weight of 2 -2¾ lb will be more convenient to use than rods of the “top” versions. You will not have any problems “pulling” an average weight sinker at 90-100 meters. And also throw a heavy feeder at a medium distance. And it will be much more pleasant to catch fish, and in carp fishing this is the main pleasure!
Carp fishing reel
I would recommend carp reels with a free spinning spool mechanism (or "baitrunner", although only Shimano reels can be officially called "baitrunner" because it is a proprietary name). I use a baitrunner on most of my carp rods. The reason is simple - I don't think most fishermen (myself included) need power reels on most fishing trips.
"Baitrunners" have the advantage of direct control of the reel. When pulling a large carp with such a reel, you can quickly release the line by pressing a special handle (circled in the photo), which releases the spool to rotate freely. Often these reels are equipped with a rear brake, and they are much lighter than big pits.
The main advantage of big pit reels is that they have a deeper and wider spool, which allows you to catch carp at a greater distance and with thicker line, and this in fact only gives an advantage at casting distances over 80 meters. They are usually equipped with a front brake, which is much more precise and powerful than the rear. Many people miss the “baitrunner” function and the ability to drop a couple of meters of line when fishing for a large carp, especially if you get a bite near the shore, and this can give you a few vital seconds. The Shimano Big Baitrunner (photo above) and Daiwa Infinity XBR5500 (photo below) are equipped with a baitrunner, but they are very heavy. Although, given that carp fishing rods are on stands most of the time, the weight of the reel is a rather controversial issue.
Just like with carp rods, with carp fishing reels you only get what you pay for. This doesn't mean you need to spend all your savings on an expensive reel. Quite normal mid-price reels from Okuma, Shimano or Daiwa will serve you for a very long time.
