Took the boat out this morn to Benbrook ta do some crappie fishin. It was kinda slow for the crappie, then I noticed what looked like surface action from sandbass goin crazy closer to the bank. Got my pole out with a slab on and got rite on the outside edge of the action. Cast after cast, no fish. Then I noticed what I thought was sandbass, was actully carp crashin, there was hundreds of them any where from 2# to 10# best I could guess. Seen carp crash before, but not in numbers like that. The end.

Interesting. How deep was the water? Were the carp jumping out of the water, or just making the surface boil?

Sounds like late spawning activity?

Water was 15 to 18' deep. Some were coming out of the water others would just roll.

how were they jumping?

On trampoleins I guess, hail I dont know

Like landing on their sides, or bellys?

Cool! Sounds like possible feeding crashes. Maybe there's a huge mussel bed down on the bottom there or something else that had drawn in a lot of carp to a small area.

I am with Justin on this. They were most likely feeding very heavily on mussels or something. I bet it would have been a cool site to see. Thanks for sharing, Ratmo.

Yeah, If they where landing on there sides I heard that means it's a feeding crash, where as if they are just jumping and landing on there bellys thats a "Crusing" and they won't take a bait.

GG

Where'd you hear that?

GG I have to disagree on that one, I have caught carp by casting to fish 'landing on their bellys', their heads, their sides, their tails.
Much study has gone into this in the UK for years and there is still no definitive on what type of leaping from the water means what, whether it is clearing gills, leaches, happiness, and so on is still up for debate. I agree with Justin, on the information supplied it sounds like a feast is going for a large shoal of cyprinus carpios.

Jase

Ditto. Crashing is crashing. If the fish are simply cruising, then they have no reason to crash at all, they'll just keep swimming. The theory is, often the crashing is done to clear mussel shells or other debris from the gill rakers, which obviously they won't be doing if they're simply cruising.

I did see one huge one feeding on something in the standing timber I was fishing. It was kinda layin on its side gittin something off a tree top that was just under the water. It was cool to see a fish of that size. Cant even start to guess the weight of it, but it was much larger than any of the ones I seen crashing.

I belive I read that on the CAG forums.....
My bad.

GG

I spent 3 days on Richmond lakes near Lincoln. I had fish crashing in front of Me the whole time and no runs. I think the fish were trying to rid themselves of some king of parasite, I've also seen this on many other lakes. It sounds crazy, but by moving away from the crashing fish I started to catch on all occasions.

An excellant example Richard of how unpredictable carp behavour can be and how we can never make big assumptions about what they are upto.

Jase

if you see a lot of fish crashing and boiling in one location its probably a hatch. They are feeding on whatever is hatching and won't take much else. Look closely at the water and you will probably find what they are feeding on.

SSF!!! HE LIVES!!

The most important thing I've found is that if the fish doesn't get your bait, you won't catch it......lest you snag it where the sun don't shine.