Carp at the feeder - 04/15/14 02:32 PM
I have a feeder on a 100 acre lake. Feeder works great but the only fish I seem to get is the grass carp. Anything I can do about this? We have lots of bream in the lake but not feeding.
Re: Carp at the feeder - 04/15/14 03:22 PM
Kill the grass carp.
Or just catch It on a pellet it won't come back to the area..
Or just catch It on a pellet it won't come back to the area..
Re: Carp at the feeder - 04/15/14 03:24 PM
Originally Posted By: Timnic
I have a feeder on a 100 acre lake. Feeder works great but the only fish I seem to get is the grass carp. Anything I can do about this? We have lots of bream in the lake but not feeding.
Yep, a 6 or 7 wt fly rod with a foam pellet fly works wonders on pellet feeding GC - throw out a hand full of pellets and let them come to feed - they just sip the feed so a soft presentation is the key.
Hang on - they will take you into the backing in a heartbeat - once hooked or landed they will never eat a pellet again - great sport fish on the fly!..
G/
Re: Carp at the feeder - 04/15/14 03:27 PM
I only hand feed and scatter the feed around the pond so my help might not be applicable.
But I wonder if you mixed in some sinking feed along with the floating you might not get more fish interested. Some may need to get an initial taste of feed and if the carp are hogging it all, they may not be getting a chance.
Also might try hand feeding both some sinking and floating around the pond in different places. Get more fish "exposed" to the taste of pellets. Once they know what they are, then they might be more inclined to travel to the feeder to look for it.
We used to have cattle out our back yard. As I would go out and check corn fields would often throw the ears in the pickup. Well I would end up with a bunch of corn in the back of the pickup. So would throw the ears of corn out to the cows. Invariable there would be a few cows that would "know" what the corn was and chow down. But a lot of them would just come up and "sniff" at it and leave it alone. They did not know it was good to eat so avoided it. If I would have done it every day, eventually all the cows would have "learned" that the ear corn was good to eat and would have been fighting over it.
I suspect fish are the same way. They have to "learn" that pellets are good to eat. So the more fish that have the chance to nibble on a pellet the more likely they will be come "trained" to eat it.
So my suggestion is to hand feed for a while scattered around the pond, both sinking and floating pellets, so the most fish have exposure and get a chance to try the feed. As long as big carp are hogging it around the feeder, the ones that don't know what it is will have no reason to try and crowd in.
It may take two or three weeks of hand feeding.
Like I say, I do not use an automatic feeder so some of the guys that do may have better ideas. But that is the way I would go about trying to get fish to eat. Kind of how my dad did it years ago with his cattle. Spread it around several places so more have a chance to try it. Once they try it and like it, then it is no problem, they will come after it.
But I wonder if you mixed in some sinking feed along with the floating you might not get more fish interested. Some may need to get an initial taste of feed and if the carp are hogging it all, they may not be getting a chance.
Also might try hand feeding both some sinking and floating around the pond in different places. Get more fish "exposed" to the taste of pellets. Once they know what they are, then they might be more inclined to travel to the feeder to look for it.
We used to have cattle out our back yard. As I would go out and check corn fields would often throw the ears in the pickup. Well I would end up with a bunch of corn in the back of the pickup. So would throw the ears of corn out to the cows. Invariable there would be a few cows that would "know" what the corn was and chow down. But a lot of them would just come up and "sniff" at it and leave it alone. They did not know it was good to eat so avoided it. If I would have done it every day, eventually all the cows would have "learned" that the ear corn was good to eat and would have been fighting over it.
I suspect fish are the same way. They have to "learn" that pellets are good to eat. So the more fish that have the chance to nibble on a pellet the more likely they will be come "trained" to eat it.
So my suggestion is to hand feed for a while scattered around the pond, both sinking and floating pellets, so the most fish have exposure and get a chance to try the feed. As long as big carp are hogging it around the feeder, the ones that don't know what it is will have no reason to try and crowd in.
It may take two or three weeks of hand feeding.
Like I say, I do not use an automatic feeder so some of the guys that do may have better ideas. But that is the way I would go about trying to get fish to eat. Kind of how my dad did it years ago with his cattle. Spread it around several places so more have a chance to try it. Once they try it and like it, then it is no problem, they will come after it.
Re: Carp at the feeder - 04/15/14 03:35 PM
Georges method works. A friend had GC eating pellets. We c&r a few and he didn't have that problem any more.
Re: Carp at the feeder - 04/15/14 03:36 PM
My grass carp, I believe taught my other fish how to eat. Now my LMB and BG go crazy trying to get the pellets before my GC or the blue catfish. They were not near as hungry till the GC got the idea down.
Re: Carp at the feeder - 04/15/14 06:35 PM
Thanks for the help. We have been catching them on flys. A guess we just have a bunch. My kids love catching them.
Re: Carp at the feeder - 04/16/14 10:19 AM
About like roping a freight train.
Re: Carp at the feeder - 04/18/14 07:27 AM
One of my granddaughters first fish was a 4# carp on an ultra light rig. Pretty fun!