My Italian friend Andrea had heard all the stories about carp fishing in Ontario. He really wanted to go carp fishing all winter...finally, he has his chance today.
I felt good about today since there were some active fish yesterday. With today's warm weather and sunny condition, it should be good, right?
We started fishing at 1pm. When we arrived, all we could see were fish on the surface sunning. There weren't even spawning groups today. Hm...
I started a chum plot and we cast our lines in. Andrea had a ledger hair rig and I fished my usual float hair rig. The fish were not hungry...but the ducks were.
There were 4 ducks that kept coming over to our chum and eating all of it. Every time they came over, they would eat around my baited hook. It got so annoying that I had to reel my line in and let them feast.
I took my other rod, put on a whole nightcrawler, and started checking the shallows for bowfin. I saw one earlier but wasn't prepared for it. As I walked around, I spotted one and made a cast over...but the fish was not interested. Then I walked over to a set of floating docks where I saw a bowfin yesterday. Since they are fairly territorial during the spawning season, I thought the fish may be here again. I didn't see any signs of the fish, but there was a distinct shadow where the fish could hide. I tossed my worm into the shallow and started working along side the dock. As I was coming to the end of the dock, I saw my line moved quickly back toward the dock. I tightened the line...FISH ON! I thought it was a bowfin for sure since it pulled pretty hard and moved with lightning speed...but what a disappointment when I saw that white belly flashed
Bass poacher (season opens end of June)
I had to take a picture since this was the fattest 3lb largemouth I've ever seen.
I had my camera in hand so between landing, unhooking and photo session, it took a whopping 15 seconds.
Well, so much for bowfin fishing...I went back to carp. The ducks had moved on so I cast out my line and tossed a handful of corn to chum.
What do you know...back came the ducks
I just cast my line in and wasn't about to bring it in again...so I let the ducks to eat around my line. Then one duck got too ambitious and she got too close to my line. I started to see my float shot off...and DUCK ON!!! At first I thought the duck had swallowed the hook...lucky for the stupid duck it was only hooked in the wing. As I reeled in the duck (quite fun actually 
), Andrea went to net it. It was obvious that Andrea had done this before as he cradled the duck firmly but gently while I removed the hook. The hook didn't penetrate too far...it was bloody but I don't think it did major damage. The duck went off well and it didn't came back to the area after
After unhooking the duck, I actually saw a carp feeding about 15 feet from shore. I quickly put on some corn again and lobbed a cast close to the area. It took the carp all of 1 min to find my hook and my float was moving. But when I got to the rod, the fish dropped it already
We fished this spot for another 2 hours with no action and no visibly feeding fish...so I decided to call a move.
We moved a little bit over to another part of the back bay. There were obvious mud plumes in the area and all the signs looked good.
The ducks were not around so we chummed to our delight. While waiting, Andrea offered me a little snack...And I wonder why the fishing was so slow...
Right after I consumed the vile fruit, I started to get a few short bumps on my float. One fish (or maybe more) were around my chum. At long last, my float was moving off...but the fish dropped it about 2 seconds later.
I left my rig in the area and continued to see a fish feed basically right on my bait...but my float did not move.
When the fish moved off, I reeled in my line and found my line tangled on a branch.
That may explain why the fished dropped my bait.
Well, the fish are feeding...so my next cast was back to the same area. About 15 min passed when all of a sudden my float started to move off slowly first...then it picked up speed! FISH ON!!!
I handled the fish for a bit while Andrea brought in his line and took out the video cam. Then I offered the rod to Andrea and he happily took it while I play cameraman.
He did a great job solo netting the fish and the had a big silly grin on his face
He was going to kiss the carp
Another beauty carp on a beauty day.
Andrea said I should take some credit too.
And reviving before the release.
With a couple of high fives and fist pumps, we tossed out the rigs again. But that was all the action for today. As soon as the sun dropped below the tree tops, the carp stopped feeding all together. I've noticed this last summer as well...so I said to Andrea we'll call it a day.
We had a very enjoyable 5 hours on the water today. Andrea shared with me some of his carp rigs and taught me how to tied a soft hair rig with dental floss. I'll definitely give that a try next time. He said he'll have some bite alarms and rod pods arriving in June...so maybe we can try fishing in deeper water...which is something I have not done yet.
I think we will have a very good carp summer this year!