An Informative and Disappointing Outing

This year, I've been exploring a ton of new spots around my area, and today was not an exeception.

One of my friend's dad had informed me about a potential great bass spot, where he and my friend caught some big largemouths. I thought, why not? and headed over. It is actually the same creek that I fish near my home, but it gets much wider over there. At first glance, It looked great. There was a lot of submerged timber, some flats, and deep channels.

Perfect fish habitat.

The water was murky from recent rains, and I tossed spinners, plastics, and topwaters to no avail. Then, I saw a gigantic SPLOOOSH near shore. I fired lures near it, but nothing struck.

Then I saw them. Fat, golden-brown, lazily cruising and making an enormous mess out of the silt bottom. They were grazing in 1-2 feet of water, sometimes less. Their backs were out of the water, fish were tailing, and luckily, I brought corn. After casting some corn, I got a bite in 5 minutes. I had about 2 seconds of a hard, bulldogging run before the hook pulled. Darn it!!!!

The Common Carp is a fish I have a particular grudge against. In Minnesota, I hooked 5 20-30 lbers, but all got off in the landing, where I had to lie on my belly and try to grab it with one hand. I was kicking myself for not buying a landing net.

Returning to the present...While I was getting back to re-rig my corn, disaster struck, in the form of a landowner. The creek was on the other side of a large fence from some private homes, so I assumed the water wasn't their property. The Landowner said otherwise, that she owned part of the water as well, and I was "damaging her property." She also spoke about liability issues,etc. I gave my apologies and walked away.

That was a bummer. That creek was the first good carp spot I've found, and so close to home, as well.

I decided to head to a bridge, a couple hundred yards from where the creek widens up, where the creek was still a very small creek. There I tried to salvage the remainder of my time. I did see some carp though, and failed to catch them. But they were in there, just at far less density and size than the other area.

I did, however, find a school of tiny bass that were quite fun on my ultralight,so at least I didn't head home with a skunk.

It was both an informative and disappointing outing, but I did find a great new spot... now I just have to find non-private access or ask permission from a landowner.