Carp Season

Otter · Senior Member

Carp Season

yukon mike · Senior Member

I just can't wait. . . I know, I'll try out a new bamboo 4 wt on the creek tomorrow, and
maybe try to catch a nice little trout! If I manage to be so lucky as to hook up with a John Deere
with fins, I just straighten out and break it off. One time, down in LaJolla at Black's Beach,
I sat and watched a guy who thought he had a nice Halibut in a pocket in pretty shallow water.
Man, he could just taste it already. After about 20 minutes of fierce battle it got away, and from
what I could see, it was about a 12" Sting Ray.

Carpe Carpum,
Mike

-- Edited by yukon mike at 22:38, 2008-03-08

JT · Senior Member

Otter wrote:

The strange thing was the carp had a thick black stripe down the lateral line.� I have never seen a black stripe on a carp, but I have only caught a few.

It sounds like you�may have caught�a different minnow species.�

Otter · Senior Member

JT I added a photo. I think it is a new species. Striped Carp.

shon42073 · Senior Member

Maybe they get that coloration when its spawning time. Last one i caught at the yuba was like pulling in dead weight.

JT · Senior Member

Are you sure it wasn't a sucker? That's my guess. There's tons of those things on the Lower Stanislaus.

shon42073 · Senior Member

Actually it was a sucker.

LilWhippersnapper · Senior Member

I think they might have that stripe because they are spawing... When I was fishing for bass at a local lake, I saw a bunch of carp swimming around in circles. At first I thought they were bass because of the stripe, but with a closer look I realized they were carp...Bummer.� cry

JT · Senior Member

I'm pretty sure it was a sucker. I just read that suckers get a dark stripe along their lateral line when spawning. I've only seen a few of them on the creek, but they're tons of them in Lake Solano. I caught one a couple of years ago at access #5. It took a #16 olive caddis pupa. Like Otter, I thought I had a brown until I got it in close.

Misterbill · Member

I know Carp. Carp are friends of mine. And that's no Carp.
The elusive "golden bonefish" have substantially larger scales, and a broader profile (fatter belly) with different shaped dorsal fins. However, they all have those cute little "kissee lips", as my wife calls 'em.

If you want a closer look at golden bones, the ponds on the west side of Berryessa have some substantial carp. The Napa river has plenty of big ones too.

I caught a couple suckers just like that one, when I was on the Feather. The whole upper half of the body was as dark as the stripe on the one in the photo. The way one of them was pulling line out, we thought it was a decent adult steelie at first. Come to find out the fish kicking my tail was a foul-hooked sucker.

dtp916 · Senior Member

That's not a carp. Some kind of sucker. Feather, Yuba, and American rivers have that fish that you caught. I forgot which species that is.....

LilWhippersnapper · Senior Member

I hooked one of those last year below the steps. I saw him swim near my indicator, but I didn't think he hit my fly, but when I went to pull my fly in for another cast he was on it. He took one big run and he was gone. It did have that black stripe also.

bono · Master Fly Fishing Guide

I havent caught a carp or sucker or golden glitter kissy lip bonefish in probably 5 years on the mighty Putah,I'm not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing.

JL · Senior Member

If that's a sucker and they are spawning, then get your yellow egg yarn out - sucker spawn flies are the bomb if you catch the spawn at the right time.

On some of the bigger rivers, it can be deadly.

JL