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Grass Carp?

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My local lake is full of them, Amurs, and thet've literally eaten all the vegatation. The place looks like a desert; can't understand why the biologist think this is good. Now only thing left to fish for is the carp themselves. My problem is how to get them to take. They'll rise to chartreuse or brown deer hair bugs but will not take. Have had no lookers on subsurface stuff. Any suggestions? Do they make fish formula flavored like grass. he he... Some of the bank fishermen occasionally get'em on earthworms. Would a worm pattern work? Not like regular carp these grass eaters!

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I covered this, a bit, on another thread about carp flies. I had some luck getting them to strike at poppers. You don't pop them, however. You just cast them well ahead of a pod of cruising Amur, and let it rest for a very long time. If they cruise under it without taking, as the last fish passes under it, give it one pop. I had one do an about face, and knock it tree feet into the air! I also had a few that would peel of from the school to come investigate. They would hover under it for some time, but would nip at the appendages as if to taste it. I think if you make a popper with lots of rubber legs hanging off the rear of the popper, you might try to hide a small stinger hook in the tail. They like to nibble before they take. I don't have enough experience with them to say what colors they like, for sure. They did like my purple popper, and my black & white popper. dunno.gif As an experiment, you might try tying something with green deer hair, that floats, that might resemble a floating piece of vegetation. If it appears that they are out of food they might be interested enough to take a bite.

 

I have had no luck on them with anything subsurface, either.

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I have caught them two times, once on a white ant and the other on a white marabou wooly bugger. The latest one was about two weeks ago on the wooly bugger. A good 30-45 min. fight. I could see the ripples in the water they were making and just layed it down easy real close to them.

 

duckydoty

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They stocked them in a local park pond for weed control. Now it's one large pea green mees that has the 'gills and bass restricted to the very edges which puts them square in the grasp of those who fish and keep most of the time. I'm not against keeping fish, but when the fish are that concentrated, it can only bring bad things.

 

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Those darn grasscarp can ruin a lake. For years I fished a local 35 acre lake that had nice clear water and quite a bit of vegatation. Then the owner decided to put in a dozen or so grasscarp to clean up the vegatation. They ate it all! Now the lake is totally void of any vegatation and is extremely muddy. Fishing is lousey. The grasscarp are huge and keep it stirred up and they are just about impossible to get rid of.

 

Dave

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QUOTE (Dave @ Mar 14 2005, 11:40 AM)
Those darn grasscarp can ruin a lake.

A brief clarification...the grass carp don't ruin the lake, they just do what they do, which is eat. Whoever stocked them into the pond was either impatient or ignorant, and caused the destruction of that body of water.

 

Ignorant = not being aware of the fact that some vegetation in a lake/pond is a desirable thing, and not being aware that there are some fairly standard guidelines about consumption and growth of rates of grass carp available. Put in more carp than the water's vegetation can support, and it'll go bare quickly.

 

Impatient = the person stocking knows the consumption/growth rates and ignores them, or uses them to calculate how to clean the lake/pond out as quickly as possible, with no regard to the long-term effects.

 

Jason

 

 

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I've caught them on two flies - a grasshopper and a "bread" fly ( While maribou over a foam base).

I've also taken them with bow and arrow......

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We have a nice little pond at my union hall, every year by mid-may, it was unfishable due to the vegetation. A couple years ago, they contracted out w/a company o maintain the pond. The first thing they did was release a half a dozen grass carp into it. It actually worked. It's become a great little fishing pond! From what i understand, this company keeps track of the fishes growth rate and when they get too big, they remove them and put smaller ones in. I caught one last year by accident on a little prince nymph I was fishing as a dropper under a popper while I was chasin' bluegills.........It was a bit of a thrill.........

 

Mike

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QUOTE (catchandrelease @ Mar 14 2005, 01:00 PM)
QUOTE (Dave @ Mar 14 2005, 11:40 AM)
Those darn grasscarp can ruin a lake.

A brief clarification...the grass carp don't ruin the lake, they just do what they do, which is eat. Whoever stocked them into the pond was either impatient or ignorant, and caused the destruction of that body of water.

 

Excellent point Jason.

 

Good management (as Mike A points out) can make all the difference. My local pond does not receive good management. It was basically a put-and-take for community groiups to brign kids to, and fisherman who couldn't get anywhere else that day or wanted to cast a few times during lunch.

 

Now it's green or brown all the time and there are almost no weeds noticeable.

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A few years back, I heard of a lake with a golf course in Texas where grass carp had been stocked. Each day when the course employees cut the grass, some of the grass would land in the lake. In short order the grass carp would arrive and begin to feed.

 

So, a few interprising fly fishers spun some bright green deer hair onto rather stout hooks, just like they were making deer hair bass bugs, but they did NOT trim the hair. These good ol' boy's then grabbed a bag of lawn clippings and headed to the lake.

 

Once there, they began to "chum" with the grass clippings. When the grass carp, began to feed, the fly fishermen, gently cast out the green deer hair flies and let them lay motionless in the chum line....Until...

 

It works! Just use a heavy rod, 'cuz those carp have big shoulders!

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Bowfin,

 

There's a gentleman in the Dallas area that nails some big grassies this way, only he goes one easier than that deer hair. Easter grass. Tie a clump to a hook and go. He knows the maintenance schedules of the grounds crews of all the local developments, GC's, etc that have grassies in their ponds, and plays "follow the mower".

 

Jason

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