Nice one Bob!

Using your favorite candy seems to help with the buffs

Hehe! They do have a bit of a sweet tooth!

Putting some buffs in the boat...most a little under 25...a few smaller

Awesome! Great to see some more catches from there. Most being in the mid 20s is really good

That's awesome! Are you at Sapphire Bay? I do a lot of crappie fishing out there in the spring and fall, if it's too windy to take the boat out. I've been wondering how often carp come in there and logistics of catching them in such a tight space. This was super informative. My slip is in shallower water (12ft) though, so that's the only bad part.

That's a phenomenal depth! If you want a tutorial on Carping I'd be happy to come out and show ya sometime

Bandito...sorry...I just saw your post. Yes, my boat is in Sapphire Bay in about 25 ft of water. After fishing for a week with a carp guide from Canada who wanted to add buffs to his caught list, I've learned several new things that I wanted to post here about fishing "tight" vs open water like most bank carpers do. The first thing to note is that fishing "loose"...letting the fish run (with bait runner reels)...results in more snags, and it was clear that these snags are caused by the original trees that were there when Ray Hubbard was flooded. I don't fish loose, I fish "tight", meaning, my drag is set heavy and I react to bites...I don't let the fish peel off line. Very often, I'm fishing straight down. But also, my rigs are different. The weight is on the bottom, and I keep my hook links short...like 4 inches. I do this because a long hook link and/or a sliding sinker...the rigs used by bankers that fish loose...often hook buffs with the hooks outside their gills. Bringing in a buff that's hooked this way is a bit traumatic for me...you have to cut off the hook...but I also don't think the fish fight right, and I suspect it is more likely to damage the fish. Fishing "tight" may or may not make it harder to hook-up carp, but I'm pretty certain it helps hook the buffs in the mouth. Maybe we can talk or fish together in person sometime out at Sapphire Bay. If you pre-bait...and I used range cubes for the first time...I'm pretty sure 12 ft of water would not be a problem at all.

Great info Bob! Looking forward to seeing your catches from this week!

I would like to share my perspective as a large portion of my fishing when i lived in Dallas was done in marina/barge settings. Carp (but especially buffalo 15-30lbs and bigger) are quite easily targeted vertically if you properly prepare. First lets discuss bait (both chum and hookbait): While corn is definitely cheap and easy to come by, i don't like it for vertical fishing as it tends to be more concentrated since it is dropped straight down for vertical fishing instead of being spombed or spodded out which allows it to spread out over an area which will cause the fish to have to move around more. The one thing that is true whether fishing vertical or at distance is that you want to create competition between the feeding fish to cause them to be more agressive which leads to more frequent and assertive bites. Cracked corn would be a better option for this than feed corn, as it is much smaller and would cause the fish to feed more aggressively over the smaller particles. That being said, cracked corn would not be my first choice either. Range cubes are definitely a step in the right direction. They used to be my first option, until i became familiar with rabbit pellets and other small pellet feed such as Calf manna. Range cubes tend to break down very slowly in water below 60 degrees. The fish will still feed on them, but this can cause them to be sore lipped resulting in VERY LITE bites due to sensative lips. I'll return with more info later.

Thanks...look forward to more...

Ok i'm back.......So my reccomendation for the range cubes in cold water is to soak them in very warm/hot water in a 5 gal buck at least an hour before fishing. They'll become mush and will have to be chummed with a spoon/ladle but they will already have significant scent to them and will attract fish much quicker. Now if you want to avoid having to do this, then I suggest using rabbit pellets or guinea pig pellets. They break down VERY QUICKLY in warm water, and much faster than range cubes in colder water. They also take on liquid attractant and cream corn very well and will then bind well with oats or panko for a makeshift packbait if needed. Calf manna does this also, but rabbit pellets are a good bit cheaper. ($16 for a 50lb bag of manna pro rabbit feed at TSC). As they break down on the bottom, they essentially turn to mush which the fish will have to work harder to suck up, which will also make for a very good clouding effect there on the bottom. This will also cause the fish to look harder for solid pieces of food amonst this, which will be scarce. This is where the hook bait comes in. The simplest hookbait in this scenario is sweetcorn. It will be easy for the fish to spot and see. Also, if you're worried about the fish being spooked by your hookbait being the only corn down there, simply spread out 1/2 can (or whole can if the area chummed is greater than 5ft in diameter) of sweet corn with the pellets to offer the fish a FEW loose offerings. While the hair rig is great for the typical Euro style method fishing, It is not the best option in my opinion for this style of fishing, but the hooks we use for the hair rig make great hooks for vertical fishing due to their small size and wide gap (comparatively speaking). There are many other baits that will work in this situation as well. Small pieces of nightcrawler or red wigglers, wax worms, super worms, black soldier fly larva, butterworms, crickets, the list goes on in terms of insects. For most of these bait presentations, you'll need one small splitshot 6-15 inches up from the hook. I'd recommend using braid (10-30 lbs) for this style of fishing.

This is also a great time to use paste/dough baits. I'll give detail on this when i get home from work later. Cheers!

Tons of great info, thanks Cornell!