I had some free time yesterday evening, and I hadn’t been to the Somerville spillway (or caught a carp) in a while. We had been to Houston twice in the past couple weeks trying to catch grass carp from Brays & Buffalo Bayou, but only managed to catch catfish and a couple gar. And in the past couple days, I had been to Lake Bryan twice just trying to catch one of the 1lb-5lb carp that are everywhere in the lake, and still only managed to catch a bunch of small catfish. But finally, after making the short drive from College Station to Somerville yesterday afternoon, I landed a nice common, along with several drum and a few crappie that I caught on my fly rod.

I was expecting to catch a buffalo, as they were rolling on the top of the water literally everywhere I looked, along with gar. And even though I would’ve been happy with a buff, I was super excited to finally land a carp after blanking so many times. I’ve also never landed a carp from Lake Somerville or the Spillway until now, so that’s a nice plus. I caught him by just freelining bread on a light action rod w/ 10lb test (I don’t like to use method feeders at the Spillway because of all the snags. You’ll get snagged almost every cast)

Nicely done!

Nice bit of multi-species action!

Lots of variety and some nice fish.
Good job.

Made a return trip this evening to freeline more bread on my light action combo (since that method seemed to work well yesterday) and ended up landing a chunky spotted gar and 2 really nice commons. Freelining bread on light tackle is starting to seem like the way to go for carp at this spot when the spillway is closed and the current is slow enough for it.

Nice post and fish. Good job.

Well done I was there with my fly rod when you caught one.

Nice post, good job!!

Nice fish.

Nice post and fish.

Nice catch, well done.

great fishing well done