Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Carp in a pond question:

I have a 20 acre strip pit pond in SE Kansas. This spring I have seen quite a few carp swimming around in the shallows. Grass Carp were stocked 10 years ago, but I believe these are common carp. The ones I saw all looked about the same size, about 18” long.
Should I be concerned about carp in the pond?
Thanks for your help
John

Regular carp can certainly overpopulate if there are no predators to control them.

I suppose a Grass Carp could age past 10 years, but they would be way, way larger than 18" if that was the same year class.

You should try and catch one and post some pictures!

Toss a baited hook containing a worm with minimal or no weight in the area where you see or saw the carp activity. If small fish bother the worm switch to carp dough balls. As far as I know there are no recipes on this forum for dough balls and there should be. Maybe someone with a little spare time will do an internet search for carp dough baits. Or maybe a member has a good recipe for dough balls that work well for carp.

If you have common carp you can soak field corn or use whole sweat corn and bait or chum small areas, then fish baited areas with small hooks baited with corn. Carp will learn to come to and frequent the baited areas. In-Fisherman Mag says this works well for catching carp. Anyone here ever tried that? I have had good luck baiting for and catching carp, but used dough balls instead of corn.

Or get yourself a bow and arrow.

I've had good success making dough balls from what we refer to as "yucky white bread." Think Wonder Bread. Tear off the crust. Take enough of the remaining white bread to form a ball around the hook. Squash it into a ball. And, like Bill said -- nothing else on the line. No sinkers. No swivels. No bobber. Nothing.

Good luck,
Ken

Ken, while you're at it, you may as well provide a recipe or two for common carp.

Do you suppose that would be as equally attractive to grass carp? I promised my 10 yr old that I would try and hook him up with one. He can hardly stand watching those monsters swim by.

I thought he just did - dough-ball stuffed carp!

Most boilie recipes are grain based mostly. I have played around with a lot of recipes and have my favorite, but when I get serious about carp fishing, I usually have 3 or 4 different recipes with me and use each until I find what the carp are wanting the best. Basic starting point for a classic carp boilie is as follows:

- 2 cups of corn meal
- 2 cups of ground oats
- 1/4 cup of powdered milk
- 1/4 cup of brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons of a cooking oil(corn, sunflower, canola, etc)
- water/milk to moisten mixture
- other ingredients added(fruit, crayfish tails, fish meal, etc)

My favorite carp boilie recipe:

- 2 cups of cooked feed corn ground in a food processor
- 2 cups of frost puffed oats ground in a food processor
- 1 cup of generic birdseed ground to a flour
- 1/4 cup of powdered milk
- 1/4 cup of semolina flour
- 1 egg
- enough water or milk to make a paste (1 or 2 tablespoons)
- 2 tablespoons of corn/sunflower oil

Mix all ingredients together to make a thick paste, about like uncooked cookie dough. Let the dough ball rest for around 10 to 15 minutes. Add a little more moisture if you need it. If dough is too wet add the flour to stiffen it up. Roll into balls and boil for around 4 minutes. They may not float when done. Air dry on a screen rack. Spray over with flavor or prepare flavor bath (small amount of flavor, sweetener and color) and soak over night. My favorite flavor bath for this one is: Richworth's aniseed, Hutchinson's intense sweet and yellow food color with enough water to cover the baits.

You can play around with the ingredients and food coloring. Carp love sweet stuff. In late May and June when mulberry trees have fruit, I will collect them, put them in a food processor and then add them to the basic starting ingredients list. Carp fishing is usually best if you can bait the area for several days ahead of fishing.

Wow!!

Now that's some serious carp bait right there. I've eaten meals where I didn't put that much thought into it. That's one thing that is so awesome about this forum, there's always someone ready to help out who knows more than you do, and everyone shares their knowledge. Maybe the membership struggles once in a while, like today, but I hope we can all find a way to keep learning from one another. CJ, my oldest and I thank you sir, I am looking forward to putting your recipe to the test!

Also, research a hair rig... It is the best way to fish a boilie. It's weird and very European, but it works! Hard to find them pre made here in the US, but they aren't hard to make.

If you really don't wanna put that much effort into it, just chum the area with whole sweet corn for a couple days and fish 3 or 4 kernals on a size 6-8 bait holder hook with no weight. Easiest way to fish for carp if you don't wanna get all fancy. I just got serious into carp fishing the European way when they started having tournaments on the Potomac River and I would stop and talk to guys with all kinds of fancy baits, rigs and styles. The guys from England, Australia, and other countries take their carp fishing very seriously!

Sparkplug -- Do it! Your son will never forget the experience.

This is an old photo, but this little fella was duped into taking a Wonder Bread ball on a 4/0 circle hook.



Carp of all types are quite smart and wary. It takes months for them to take the same kind of bait a second time if they sense that it was a danger.



For those who may not know me, my food tastes are considered broader than that of the general population of the universe. There are very few fish types that I don't care for. For some reason, carp is one of them. My wife, also a real fish eating connoisseur, feels the same way.

I've wanted to like it for more than 40 years. I've kept trying, but it just doesn't happen. To cut open a large carp just makes me drool. The firm white meat looks better than grouper, walleye, or striper.

I've tried in boiled, fried, oven baked, broiled, pickled, and smoked -- and probably a few other ways too. It smells sooo good! It looks so grrreat!

The texture is great. I can get past bones. I just don't like the taste.

Please don't take this as anti-Semitic, but carp disguised as gefilte-fish is pretty awful too. I don't care if it is Galitzianer (sugar cured) or Latvig (pepper cured), it is pure evil!

But, I also don't like Scotch whiskey or Budweiser beer. Give me some Virginia Gentleman or a Yuenling, along with some fine pickled herring, as an appetizer preceding some great deep fried bluegill, walleye, perch . . . !

Time for dinner,
Ken

P.S. Travis -- thanks for the recipes. We've got a lake (Warden Lake) near us with hundreds of overgrown grass carp they want removed. The state record grass carp of 50.75 inches / 71.69 pounds came out of that lake a few years ago. I may just make up a little bit of each of your recipes, and try it in the next several weeks at Warden Lake.

THANKS everyone for the suggestions. I will try to capture some carp to verify the type. I am 90% sure they are common carp.
Should I try and reduce the number of carp in the pond? They don't muddy the water, and there is plenty of vegetation. I want opinions of all of you wonderful pond masters if the carp could be a potential problem, or a benefit. Would the young be a good source of food for the Bass? I have noticed the population of Blue Gill becoming scarce. There does not seem to be near as many as a couple of years ago.
Thanks for all of your help
John

The sweet corn works just as well. That's how I used to catch carp when I was a kid. One can of whole kernel corn to chum with, then thread the hook full of kernels. I'd toss out a few rods, but then kept one ready. When I'd see bubbles coming up, I'd toss the hooked corn on top of the bubbles. 9 times out of 10 I'd catch the carp. #2 gold aberdeen hook, 8# test line, no weight.

I can't think of a benefit to carp. Anyone?

YOY common carp will provide good forage for your predators. However like with gshad their growth rate and maximum size quickly puts most of them out of prey size very fast. Thiis leads to them often taking up large percentages of the biomass a pond can support. There is evidence carp can affect spawning success of sunfish and black basses with their feeding behavior. How much probably depends on a number of factors... The younger carp also compete with BG directly for many food sources. I'd remvoe them.

Dave, they have become very popular in some fly fishing circles as a sport fish and are being called "golden bones" - in reference to salt water bone fish, one of the most sought after sport fish worldwide. In our area they are being "stalked" on the flats on Lake Ray Roberts and cast to sight fishing.

I know you have caugth a grass carp from your pond - one of the hardest fighting fish around - just don't release one tho - they will NEVER bite another hook!

If someone liked to eat them, then I'd recommend stocking them in a pond. But, they'd have to like eating a LOT of them!!

Yeah, worldwide carp fishing is big. Much bigger than LMB HSB, and stripers combined.

I wonder if Buffalo would act the same as carp in a pond?

Their meat tends to be much better tasting in my opinion.

Aren't buffalo suckers hard to catch on hook & line? I have read they rarely bite baited hooks. Has anyone regularly or reliably caught them? Most are taken with nets or spears.

I fish for carp on a regular basis. There are two baits that are absolutely dynamite.

1)A few pieces of sweet corn on a small #6 owner mosquito hook

2)Get some Wheaties and some of that Big Red soda from the grocery store. Pour some big red on a wheatie, and compact the wheatie into a ball.

Both of these baits work extremely well. For a real simple rig get a small 1/8th ounce egg sinker, and connect it to a 3 foot leader with a barrel swivel.

Make sure your line is SLACK (they will spit it out if they feel any resistance at all) and is simply just laying on top of the water. You have to watch your line very carefully. When it starts moving, simply reel in the slack and give it a little tug (nothing crazy) and the fight is on.

You could do some really fancy rigs / bait recipes, but that is for very heavily pressured fish and really isn't necessary.

Carp are smart fish and live to ripe old ages. Some of the mirror carp with their distinct patterning have been caught and released many times over the years. If they weren't such "water pigs", they'd be a wonderful gamefish.

Wheaties has always been a staple for us as well. We used to always use strawberry pop, but now just grab a handful and dip in the water where we are fishing; they seem to work just as well for us and do not have to mess with the pop.

Then again worms have always worked well too. What I like about worms is you really never know what will bite especially in a river. You get a carp, drum, catfish, sunfish, gar, etc. I have caught just about everything on them and this is the reason I like to use them when fishing with my daughter, as she is surprised each time she reels a fish in and wants to know what it is.

Great times.

Thanks for all of your input! I didn't spend too much time fishing for the carp. I did see one in the shallows, shot it with a .22. It rolled over, so I saw the bottom side of the carp, and it was definitely a common carp, not a grass carp.
Maybe next week I can spend more time fishing for them.
Thanks