Recent Observations

[MoCarp]

awesome...I find this interesting...I had no idea zebras where at those depths here...I know common carp and blue cats feed on them ..perhaps I need to fish a tad deeper than I do now....it seems in waters across the USA large carp/zebra mussel connection

[mojorig]

Yea, Blue catfish love ZM.

We have reports of live ZM as deep as 80 ft on Bull Shoals Lake.  Bull Shoals Lake Boat Dock found them while retrieving items in their cove.

[MOPanfisher]

A few years back I remember some talk about zebra and quagga mussels and the different depth they would tolerate. Some discussion afree that, maybe some interbreeding or ZMs were dping well at deeper than originally thught they would.  Seems like the lakes in other areas have gone through a boom/bust cycle with them, they super populate for a while then die back and finally settle in a more or less stable population, or ateast one with much smaller population swings.

I am curious how a common carp with their soft mouths are able to break zebra mussels loose to eat them, but several studies I have seen indicate fairly high numbers of them in the stomachs of Common Carp.

[snagged in outlet 3]

6 hours ago, mojorig said:

We will hold back our opinion until the lake gets back to normal pool or even below it.

Looks like that could be this week, do you agree?

[Ham]

Another positive sight. 

[MoCarp]

17 hours ago, mojorig said:

Yea, Blue catfish love ZM.

We have reports of live ZM as deep as 80 ft on Bull Shoals Lake.  Bull Shoals Lake Boat Dock found them while retrieving items in their cove.

Thats amazing...Commons run larger on Avg it seems than other Lakes in the 4 state area, at least the ones I catch..., I wonder if zebras occur deeper because carp keeping them thinned down in the shallower areas? temps? fluctuating water levels?....be an interesting study subject.....I know in the great lakes they seem to occur very shallow there...

14 hours ago, MOPanfisher said:

A few years back I remember some talk about zebra and quagga mussels and the different depth they would tolerate. Some discussion afree that, maybe some interbreeding or ZMs were dping well at deeper than originally thught they would.  Seems like the lakes in other areas have gone through a boom/bust cycle with them, they super populate for a while then die back and finally settle in a more or less stable population, or ateast one with much smaller population swings.

I am curious how a common carp with their soft mouths are able to break zebra mussels loose to eat them, but several studies I have seen indicate fairly high numbers of them in the stomachs of Common Carp.

The mouth on older bigger commons seem to get tougher as they get older..its noticeable..It never occurred to me the possibility that it could be from them eating the zebras...

in the back of a commons throat are pharyngeal teeth they use to grind or a better term is crush items, seeds.. snails..grains...most any organics that wash into a water..Whole seeds and egg shells are left in baits for the "crunch factor" that the carp seem to prefer.

The image of carp head down slurping in mud isn't what they do normally they cruse around like cows grazing in a pasture...all the little tid bits you find on the bottom in a back eddy of an ozark stream is an example..they hoover up an mouth full and some how decide what to blow out and what to push back and eat...one of the reasons they are hard to hook, until they commit to the food item..

Commons where considered almost uncatchable once they got old and wise...but Englishmen Len Middleton and Kevin Maddocks in 1980 credited with the tied hair rig did carp angling blossom, before that natural hairs... horse usually...was used to link the bait to the hook. This is why they called it a  'hair rig'.

we use now use complex rigs so that you hook them on the 1st suck so to speak..stiff hinge rigs..chod rigs...d-rigs...KD rigs--zig rigs--all with the complexity a fly tier would appreciate...I have more types of hooks/rigs for carp than I ever did for all my other fishing.....one reason is such a big $ business in Europe... fishing for carp is more like setting a trap to catch an old wise coyote... than waiting for a catfish to eat stink bait...

[MoCarp]

pharyngeal teeth of a common carp...if you ever find those in you'll know what they are now

[fishinwrench]

Now THAT I find interesting.  I had no idea.

[mojorig]

Excellent stuff, MoCarp!!!

I like coming on here and learning new stuff!!