EuroCarping 101

below better explains what is used to catch carp by euro style anglers, it should be noted that SOME of these ideas and tackle can be used on bass, catfish or steel-head gear and this gear has applications on american catfish and surf casting as well


This is a rod pod where rods rest, with the line running through a bite alarm that beeps when the line moves out or toward you.



The alarms are adjustable for sensitivity, beep tone, and loudness so you can tell which rod has a bite plus a light that comes on when a take is detected--the little light feature is very handy at night




Reels are have a bait runner feature--basically a second drag that lets line come off the reel under tension with the bail closed--baitrunner tension is adjustable--it is engaged with a lever in the back and disengages when you start reeling.






Rods are usually long from 9-13 feet powerful butt sections to cast distance and soft tips for playing big fish close without hooks pulling out









The rigging is called a hair rig/bolt rig



this is how they are tied

a baiting needle is used to pierce a bait –in this case a boilie-but corn or many other semi hard baits can be used this way



Then the back of the hair is draw through the bait


then the bait is snugged up on a stop


some tools and examples






Fish can take the bait without feeling the hook before its too late---it also is less likely for the fish to be gut hooked with this set up.

They do not feel the hook until the bait part is swallowed then as they feel the hook the fish try’s to expel it and is stung by the hook--one of the reasons the hair is tied the way it is--to have the hook turn in as it is expelled, the fish “bolts off” and hits the fixed lead , driving the hook home!!! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz fish on

One of the best tricks is to use PVA ( poly vinyl alcohol)--they make webbing and bags just for fishing-- -which dissolves in water—






Chum is put in pva and it is tossed out with your hook bait to draw fish in and keep them feeding



Sometimes when bites are faster chum is squeezed around a special sinker called a method feeder

With fish that can be huge a big net is a must light weight, these euro nets can be used with 1 hand--the net itself has no crossbar just two arms that are usually at least 40" long, fish slide over the bar less lip of the net & then lifted vertically as the net was not designed to lift fish horizontal like traditional nets










Fish after netting are usually placed on a padded mat--for 3 reasons--

1) to protect the fish
2) to calm the fish, they flip around less on a mat
3) many mats double as a weighing sling just loop the handle in the hook of the scale and subtract the weight of the mat--many times big fish are damaged putting the hook of the scale in a fishes gills






Chasing that biggest carp in the lake may take a few days--so in Europe they camp right on the water in fishing tents called bivys







One of the backbones of euro style fishing--is chumming--since you do not have the luxury of moving around looking for feeding fish--chumming is used to bring fish in and keep them in the area feeding

Here is a catapult







spods tied to the line and cast out--the nose floats and the bait falls out--better when the fish are at distance





Remote control bait boat--chum is placed in the center dropper hopper piloted out to place the chum bed








As you can see the whole bank fishing thing is as sophisticated as you want to make it--

Euro fishing offers a challenge to even the most hard core angler--


Many anglers may look down their noses at carp, if you try it a few times you will quickly get addicted to the powerful runs carp are known for. Few fish can rival even a 10 pound common carp for line stripping run after line stripping run--you can just imagine the fight of a fish of 20 pounds!

Eating smaller carp is an option, doing so may even help a lake produce bigger carp, but releasing the biggest ones to catch again -- many times you will recatch the same big fish again and again over several years--usually a little bigger each time






So where to get this kind all this kind of gear?

lots of Euro stuff can be bought at Bass Pro & Cabelas—Big Carp Tackle,
wackerbaits.com, royalcarp.com

Quick fact: Common carp were stocked on purpose in the USA are not invasive escapees like portrayed by many news reports like the the bighead and-silver asians carps so much in the news. But, beginning when Ulysses S Grant was president, common carp were imported from Germany to raise by the federal fisheries agencies and distributed to states in the late 1880s. The common carp is among the most widely distributed fish in America. It is a fierce fighter that is believed the fish can live as long as 40 years. Most Fish and Game Biologists consider Common Carp Naturalized, much like honey bees are today

Growth rates of common carp are nowhere near what most average anglers have come to take as facts

in the fishes of Missouri by William L Pflieger about Common Carp Growth Rates in Missouri have been studied

"Carp avg 6.5 " in length at the end of their 1st year of life and achieve lengths of 11", 14.2", 16.7", and 18 " in succeeding years. On the avg they weight 1 pound when 12", 5 pounds when 21.5" long and 12 pounds when 27" long. Big fish are truly a rare resource

This info rocks!

Now thats going to help the newbies! Thanks for posting!

Learned something new today

Looks & sounds like you guys will need a pair of these if you want to do some EuroCarping

Like that sig Huckleberry!!!

Now you might catch a carp GG lol.

Great post, Zach or Justin will you delete my post at the beginning of the thread since it won't let me do it now.

thanks again harry, this was allot of work and its some really great info!

lol.... yeah, I need a carp..... SO......BAD!

Awesome info, thank you!

stupid question here ...on the bolt rig why does the weight have to be so big ? ive heard that the weight will set the hook alone with the heavy weight . but it looks like a carolina type rig to me in the picture and looks lit it would just stay put wnen the fish bite ? well any way i usually use a slack line for carping . does it have to be taught for it to work ??? thx in advance .btw the hair rig makes perfect sense . that is what i used today .

the heavy weight 3oz at least 4oz is better by my experance

sets the hook on the "bolt off"

the weight is semi fixed meaning it doesn't slide on the line so when the fish picks up the bait it only has a few inches of play before the weight is felt and sets the hook.

Thanks for the post. I enjoyed it.

Ray

thanks for the info, I found some big carp and buffalo in a local river that I wanted to try to catch, but I wasnt sure what to do with them once I caught them! Big net, and a mat!

Great post, going to have to try some of this....I now understand the boilies

Very nice post, very informative for anyone wanting to try it out!

This is exaxtly what I have been looking for!!! Thank you so much.... Now I have a question.. I have NEVER even thought of going out and trying to fish for carp or anything before, but now I have this sudden urge to go do it... Will any lake hold these fish or what? I live in the bryan/college station area.. what should I look for in a lake? Or should I just cast out as far as possible into the lake and hope for the best?

carp are in pretty much every pond, lake, river. just get some sweet corn and you should get one.

gti,

As with any fishing, it would pay to watch the water for a while in whichever lake or pond you're interested in catching carp in, to see where you see signs of carp. You could cast and soak corn 100 yrds into the lake while the carp are cruising just 15 feet away from shore.
There is no set answer to your question; each lake will be different, each season different, time of the day, etc.
Chris has the right idea to start with: get a couple of cans of sweetcorn, throw one of them out as chum (the corn, not the can!), use the other as hook bait. Put two or three kernals on a small (size 8 or 6) hook. Use two rods; throw one out to the close edge of your chum, throw the other to the farther edge.
This is important: loosen your drags so that the line can easily be pulled out! A carp, even a small one, is strong enough to pull your rod into the water. Once you have a fish on you can tighten the drag some to reel in.

Good luck!

To suppliment the very nice information on this thread here is a very inexpensive book put out by Fox on Euro techniques for Carp. I own the book: http://www.bigcarptackle.com/store/product.php?productid=17071&cat=279&page=1

Another good piece that I have purchased is a DVD put out by the American Carp Society and can be found super cheap here: http://www.bigcarptackle.com/store/product.php?productid=16406&cat=279&page=1 This is a fantastic $8 investment for anyone considering carpin' in a serious way.

Having made the above purchases along with a couple of other DVDs my weapon of choice is still the fly rod and my favorite book and DVD follow:

book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1555661866?tag=...29VBFZR0ZS&

DVD: http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores...5006000_175-6-1

Rick

those books rock i have the fox guide to carp rigs, although you will never use most of the rigs here in the us, i have tries a couple and my catch rate has improved.

I agree this is a very good post for newbees like me. TY

How do you make boilies and/or where can you buy them. I have used them before and was told how to make them but that has been a long time ago. Any help would be appreciated.

youtube will prob have some info or just type "making bolies " in google search box

Thanks Jesse,
You were right youtube has quite a few.

for store bought baits check bigcarptackle.com its in OK buy mistral or solar brand..

for store bought baits check bigcarptackle.com its in OK buy mistral or solar brand..

never liked carp till i caught one! now im hooked, and hopefully they are too!

Pretty cool....

Im doing my first carp trip soon...flyfishing..can't wait

Good info

on occasion I try and share info on other forums in this case , www.nefga.org

in Nebraska this upcoming Saturday, They hold the Carp O Rama, so I poster this Tutorial last night as a help under a nonmocarp name

I get up this morning and the post was deleted and this was on my acct

"You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.

Date the ban will be lifted: Never"

You were obviously guilty of plagiarism.

Here's an interesting exchange from that forum:

Post: "Favorite carp bait?...i always use corn, but i think that's too simple."

Repy: "I do not see what you mean too simple. Often simple is the best, unless you go into euro-style and make carp fishing as some kind of useless artistic style"

Another quote from the same guy:

No matter how desperate you become catching carp....

Do not go toward so called 'Euro-Style'

Supposingly, carp in Europe are much smarter than the ones in the US, they has to use so much of fancy stuff....

Some uses ....hoping to get attention/respect from other angler and wanted to be told 'COOL!!' ....but in reality, most other angler will look at you and whisper....'dumb *****'....

Afterall, carp around here are not so intelligent and can be caught with regular hook/weight/corn

Also as well, no need to use this to chum corn....

Also, MoCarp seems to have a bit of a negative reputation on that forum, so I'm not surprised to see that his article was deleted and his sock puppet account was banned. Not that I think it was right, just that I'm not surprised.

I am guilty the heinous crime of promoting fishing for carp and not tossing them on the bank, vilified as I am is SOME forums this quote from an "other methods" forum poster,

OK, a newb question here.

So this setup is sophisticated, and looks cool.
BUT.. if I were to do the very simple approach, basically
a simple rig with a sliding 1/2 Oz weight, swivel, and 1ft mono leader, and simple hook, and impale the corn on the hook, would this euro-rig totally outfish it? By what ratio?
I guess I've never thought of carp being that smart, and that you needed sophisticated rigs to get them

the euro style is geared more towards LONG session of fishing

and the hair rig is gear towards better hooking ratio on fish

but either style, euro or tradition will catch fish

European gear and techniques were developed because their fish received far more pressure than ours do (their fish probably see baits with hooks in them hundreds of times more than our average fish). It's not that their carp are smarter, it's just that they are confronted with more learning opportunities than ours.

Each piece of the Euro carping gear has evolved for a purpose. The long rod allow fishing at greater distances, over 150 yards if required. There's really no way to fish at these distances with American gear; in this case, longer is not just better, it's required. Fortunately we don't have to fish at those distances too often.

The baitrunner reels provide a tiny amount of drag when a fish "bolts" right after it is hooked, and a larger amount of drag when you want to fight it. You can get the same effect by just backing off the drag on a standard reel before the fish is hooked, then tightening it up to fight the fish. It's just easier with a baitrunner reel, which switches from the lighter (baitrunner) drag to the main drag as soon as you start reeling.

The tiny hooks (typically size 6 or smaller) make sense when you realize how truly small a carp's mouth is. A 20-pound carp probably has a mouth the size of a 1- or 2-pound bass. You can catch carp with larger hooks, but your numbers will probably go down.

You can certainly catch carp with just a Carolina rig, but it requires more skill to set the hook at just the right time. A bolt rig is basically a small hook on a modest leader attached to a weight of about 3 ounces. When the carp takes the bait and hook into its mouth and moves away from the sinker, the leader tightens and sets the hook automatically. A bolt rig allows you to just "set it and forget it" while you do something else. Most of the "fancy" features of bolt rigs (like safety clips or anti-tangle tubing) either increase the chance that a fish won't die if the main line breaks, or they help ensure that your cast does not result in a tangled mess on the bottom of the lake.

The other stuff, like pods and bite alarms, basically help keep your rods and reels in a predictable place and help you detect bites. Again, you don't need this stuff, but if you're fishing in the middle of the night, it's nice to know where you gear is in case you have to stumble out of your tent to find your rod and fight a fish. The alarms are not necessary, either, but it beats having to stare at your line for hours on end looking for a bite.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The only things that are necessary are a rod, reel, line, hook, and bait, and most American fisherman already use these. If the fish are feeding heavily, you can catch carp on just about any gear. But if conditions are tough or you're fishing for more than just a couple hours, or you're trying to catch fish that weigh more than a kindergartner, the European system makes catching carp a lot more enjoyable, more effective, and maybe just a little bit cooler.

Thanks Brett for the great info.