Monster Carp

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

Caught a giant today up around MCCords bend. No clue in the weight my scale only goes to 15.  Gotta be pushing 30.   This thing inhaled a war eagle spinner bait.  Can’t believe the bait held together till the end

[BilletHead]

        Grass carp to boot! Neat,

  BilletHead

[MOPanfisher]

That's what I was thinking too.  Couldn't see the head very well but body shape sure says grass carp.

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

yep, it was definitely a grass carp, Gave me a workout and pulled my boat around for about 15 minutes

[Notropis]

57 minutes ago, aarchdale@coresleep.com said:

the yep, it was definitely a grass carp, Gave me a workout and pulled my boat around for about 15 minutes

I can tell from from personal experience, grass carp are one of the most powerful and acrobatic fish you will ever hook into.  When I was a student doing work-study at a college sponsored aquaculture research station, one of my duties was to help seine the research ponds.   We students would draw straws to see who had the misfortune to get in and pull the seine in the ponds with the adult grass carp.  When the seine would crowd the carp they would begin jumping in every direction and I don't mean jumping like a bass, these fish would sail through the air like salmon, 10-12 feet distance while clearing the water 3-4 feet and they were 10-20 pounds! One hit me in the thigh and I ended up with a bruise the size of a baseball.  I witnessed a grass carp sail through the air and go face first into a student's waders causing quite a scene as he tried to get to bank and pull the carp out of his waders.     

[Quillback]

We've got a few of them here in the Bella Vista lakes.  In the winter and early spring every once in a while I'll see one belly up - they are still alive, but for some reason I don't know, they'll lay on top, belly up, and sort of zone out.  I'll try and sneak up on them with the trolling motor, and some times I'll get close enough I can poke them with a rod - spooks the heck out of them!  

Yes, I am easily amused.

 

[MOPanfisher]

1 hour ago, Notropis said:

I can tell from from personal experience, grass carp are one of the most powerful and acrobatic fish you will ever hook into.  When I was a student doing work-study at a college sponsored aquaculture research station, one of my duties was to help seine the research ponds.   We students would draw straws to see who had the misfortune to get in and pull the seine in the ponds with the adult grass carp.  When the seine would crowd the carp they would begin jumping in every direction and I don't mean jumping like a bass, these fish would sail through the air like salmon, 10-12 feet distance while clearing the water 3-4 feet and they were 10-20 pounds! One hit me in the thigh and I ended up with a bruise the size of a baseball.  I witnessed a grass carp sail through the air and go face first into a student's waders causing quite a scene as he tried to get to bank and pull the carp out of his waders.     

Wayyyy back in my youth we helped a farmer who had several hundred he had raised in a 1 acre rearing pond.  I still remember swinging day when it looked like every nature show I had even seen on salmon going up a set of falls.  Had planned on selling them to folks, but ended up with the pond so stirred up they came to the top gasping for air.  So we waded in with dip nets and started scooping them up and into a stock tank with fresh water, then hauled them down to the big pond of 7 acres and dumped them in.  We should have let them die.  That 7 acre pond had a lot of algae mats and was a great bass pond.  We guess maybe 800 of them thing we dumped in.  Within a year there was nothing green left in the big pond, and we had begun prowling the shallows and shooting them with rifles to get rid of them.  Biggest fish I ever caught was one of them that we guessed at at least 50 lbs, his fight was less than stellar for a fish that big.  Ah the misspent days of youth.

[Terrierman]

I love canned carp.  That one would be at least 8 pints of prime.  Pack one inch chunks tight in pint jar.  Add one bay leaf, one tablespoon of ketchup and one teaspoon of canning salt.  Pressure can for 45 minutes.  Do not knock it until you try it.

[MoCarp]

I never saw a grass carp on TR, sometimes people stock them in ponds, and we get wash ins not much for them to eat in TR, can't tell by the angle on size but grass carp get much bigger on avg than commons, 20# would be a fair guess

[bluebasser86]

Grass carp are weird fish. Supposedly eat nothing but plants, but seemingly one will get a wild hair every once in a while and eat something it's not supposed to. I was fishing a S-Waver in a pond several years ago when I watched this monster rocket off the bottom and T-bone it. It was a heck of a fight even on heavy swimbait gear.