those are some really big fish. last time a buddy of mine and i caught two 20lbs, we chopped them up and had catfish bait for weeks. chopped up carp makes a great catfish bait.

may be both bait and location, I kinda of put it into perspective, grapevine I have had carp there to 25lbs that is a huge fish for our area these where caught on the lower Colorado River, 25lbs there I dont even bother to take a picture of I release them with out ever taking them out of the water, when you are looking for a great carp fisherie you 1st want to look for food supply a good supply of muscles/small clams is a must, some large creyfish are a must as well, then you must look at the lake itself lakes that relitively few shallows produce larger fish along with predators Bass, Large Flatheads a lake with a good head of these will have monster carp in it, Fork has some HUGE carp in it, great example of a balanced water, bait selection is problet the least important thing but I like larger harder baits I tend to fish with boilies most of the time, some times fishing 3 at once but most of the time 1-2

anyone that would like to join me for some carping some time let me know would be great to have the company

here are a couple of photos of my carp rig that I would fish a boilie on its called a hair rig works really well and a photo of my intire carp rig with a safty clip and anti-tangle tubing

Thanx for all the info. I bet you can chunk that thing a mile!! The tubing is a good idea too. I'll hve to take you up on that sometime. I'd love to see what my "performance" reels could do with that rig. Do you guys ever use baitcasters or just spinning reels??

mostly spinning reels, there are a couple of people that use the large abu garciea's with the bait runners on them

So if the bait hangs below the hook how does the hook end up in the carp's mouth to catch him?

From what I read, the idea is to not spook the fish when they are just tasting it. They actually crush the boiles farther back in their mouth and that's when the hooks end up inside their mouth.

When the carp sucks the bait in the hook follows. Then he will try to eject it. This is where a really sharp hook comes into play. the point will then slightly prick the skin and stick. Once the fish moves off the weight of the lead will set the hook further. No need to set the hook just grab the rod and hold on!!

I've caught thousands of fish with rigs like the one in the pic and I've never had a carp swallow one yet.

But you are correct with the Pharangyl(sp?) teeth in their throat. They get food items(i.e mussels, crayfish, snails, insect larvae, some plants, etc) to these throat teeth and crush them.

what Dave said

LoneStarCarper,

Looks like you're fishing in Town Lake down here in Austin, correct?

Bump

yeah that was austin the World Famous Town Lake people come from all over the world to catch carp in austin texas crazy uh? its really kinda of a hard lake to fish lots of space on the banks but finding the fish can be a little tough

I caught one on Decker that was about the same size as the one on the bottom pic. Believe it or not, he bit a live, large crawfish.

yeah I have seen them turn over rocks in rivers chaseing after Crawfish, mmmmm Decker eh? where is that

wow....its been along time since them days.... searching through some old post today and came across this, one of my first carp post on the TFF...

thought it was worth a bump....