Finally got my grass carp

[Jeffrey Silvan]

You might remember a post from several months ago about me trying to catch a grass carp in the little lagoon in my parents backyard (near Hilton Head), then finally hooking one only to have it break off as I tried to land it.

Well I got my revenge today. The grass carp weren't nearly as active, and were generally ignoring anything I threw. I finally decided to switch over to, of all things, a chartreuse egg pattern. That did the trick, and about 15 minutes later, I subdued this over 30" beast that easily weighed 20 lbs plus.

[TurbineBlade]

Jeff -- that's a powerful, monster of a fish.  Nice job ;).  

Gene

[tperkins]

Well done! That's a fantastic fish.

[Paul Kalajainen]

Way to go!  I have a similar battle with some carp in a golf course pond near my in-laws' place in Myrtle Beach.  Last year I hooked a monster but he ran me under a branch and broke off.  Next year I hope!

[namfos]

Nice!

Mark

[TurbineBlade]

Carp stories are fun!  Beth and I have landed some in the 20+ pound range, though all were on (secret) jiffy dough bait on spinning tackle, usually with 8-pound mono.  Beth caught a good one on the Potomac a while back and I posted the picture here at some point -- he was hard to lift!  

I hooked a fairly large one (maybe in the 10-15 pounds range) this spring on fly tackle (3-weight.....obviously I wasn't planning for carp) and lost him under some bridge pylons after getting pulled around quite a bit in my kayak.  I posted a report about it, and had a 'revenge' of sorts on the next day....though they weren't too large.    

Of all the fish I miss catching regularly, carp are at the top of the list.  I've only landed 2 on fly gear (I think?) and both were medium-sized, one of which really had a lot of fight on that 9' rod.  I was literally worn-out after leaning on him for so long....and the repeated "resurgences" after beaching the sucker were ridiculous.  

I love carp.  You have a real gem if you have family property with grass carp roaming about in the backyard.  We had some large grass carp at the hatchery and when we drained the solar pond and had to transfer them around to other ponds, it was almost unbelievable how strong they were.  I can picture your delight in fighting one on fly tackle.  

Gene

On Tuesday, November 25, 2014 12:06:08 PM UTC-5, namfos wrote:

Nice!

Mark

[Aaron O]

Jeff,

     That is a great fish and I am super Jealous.  Good for you!

Aaron