This year's trip wasn't quite as productive as I wished it was. Arrived at the spot on Friday and watched the water for hours to try and see a Carp or Buffalo crash so I could set up on top of them. Nada. Took the kayak out and marked a couple fish but nothing too spectacular, so rather than packing up and trying a different location entirely (which would've been the best option) I decided to stick with it and set up at a likely looking spot. Baited every day like clockwork at dawn and dusk with 5 gallons of range cubes and 5 gallons of a 50/50 boiled birdseed/deer corn mix. It "only" took until Monday to finally land the first proper fish of the trip (lol). Without further ado below are the results of the 10 day trip!


First fish of the trip, surprisingly a Buffalo! They're much rarer of a catch than Carp in this lake.


Jacob with a decent one at night. He set multiple PBs this trip!


Jacob with another solid fish


And yet again! He was on fire. His spot seemed to produce better than mine, and when he headed to town one day I caught 8 Carp on his rods before he came back only an hour later.


Jacob with a beast of a Ghostie! This fish was so tall and broad and tipped the scales at 19lb 8oz.


Now this one's no Ghostie but it is a fish I recognize! Jacob's new PB at 25lbs even and a recapture from last year's trip!


Here's Jacob's fish above from last year. Note the pattern on the face, the slightly disfigured tailfin, the distinguishing scales on the "wrist" of the tail, and the orange dot on the gill plate.


Jacob with yet another!


Jacob with his last fish of the trip before he made the 7 and a half hour drive back home.


This mondo Shad tried to eat this tigernut! Fair hooked with a size 4 Carp hook. Wish I could've taken a proper photo, but this was part of a triple with 2 Carp.


This fish was such a beast and I was sure it would break my PB! Alas, it tied it at 38lbs on the nose.


This cute little Buffalo came at night so we put him in a retention sling overnight to get a photo in the morning. Such a dark little dude!


Solid Carp for yours truly. Lots of the fish here have slightly missing tails. Gators maybe?


Here's one of the fish that I had to fight from the kayak! This fella got snagged so I took to the water and managed to coax him out only to have him tow me all around the lake. There's nothing more exciting than being dragged around the lake by such a powerful fish!


Here's the last fish of the trip before Brine and his wife left. Unfortunately they didn't do incredibly well this year and lost a lot of fish to snags, hookpulls, and bent hooks.

As luck would have it the Buffalo started moving in the day I planned to leave. While I was packing up I'd take off running every time I heard the alarms go off and every one was a Buffalo! I told myself I'd stay until it got dark to try and eek out a good one.


Oh how I wish these fish weighed as much as they looked! This one tied my PB yet again at 38lbs even, but was so incredibly strong.


And here she is, the last fish of the trip. If only I could've stayed 11 or 12 days lol. All in all a satisfying and fun trip with great company. The fish could've cooperated more but I'm not complaining too much, especially when I've got another trip coming up next month!!

Awesome post, trip and pics! Good job guys!

and a solid post. Good job guys!

Beautiful pictures. There are some great fish in there. The shad is great.

Thanks everyone!

New species for me on Carp bait

Great trips, thank you for your sharing. Any grass carp?

Thank ya sir! Not this time - usually you only catch them reliably in a few places.

You are one "Fish Catching Machine"!

Loved everything about this write up. Made me feel like I was there on the bank reeling them in!

SWEEEEET! Dude your the glue holding the carp and buff cpr together here! The recapture is an amazing fish!

I fished on the left side of the beach there, only to find it a snag nightmare.
Is it any better to the right, closer to the bluff ?

The whole place is a snag nightmare - until you figure out the trick to it! Turns out the snags are actually just a crazy dropoff and if you reel in normally your weight will actually get dragged up into the clay bottom (weird isn't it?). Brian and I discovered some different techniques to retrieve our rigs without issue. The most reliable by far was repeatedly bouncing the rod tip while reeling in. You can do this when reeling in to recast or even with a fish on!