As summer finally arrived in Montreal, I planned on some more night fishing for carp. Not having pushed my guiding season much this year, staying local and fishing pre-baited carp for a couple hours after dark suits me fine.
Being that carp are bottom feeders that use their senses of taste and smell to find food, once a given area is properly baited for a few days, there is a good chance it won't take too long to get bit.
For my first outing, I prebaited a spot I haven't fished since last year. I headed back to fish the spot with my son Eli. Didn't take long for the rod baited with my sweet dream boilie to get hit. After a short fight, I netted Eli's first night time carp of the season, a nice specimen in the mid twenties range.
Nothing else biting that evening, I threw in the rest of the bait I brought along for another shot at it the following night. Unfortunately, all I managed to catch the following night was a small channel cat.
A couple weeks later, I decided to prebait a different spot for a couple nights in a row. I then returned to fish there around night fall. I cast out my rod, and before I even had a chance to setup the landing net, my rod went off. Landed a mid size channel cat, which was quite a surprise, as I have never caught a channel cat in that area despite having fished there numerous times over the past decade. Didn't bother with a picture.
I reset my line, and sure enough, I got hit at the last minute, literally 5 minutes before I was going to pack up and head home. This time it was a carp, but at 18 lbs, quote smaller than the average carp I get there, despite still being decent size. Sweet dream popup boilie did the trick.
Again, I brought along some more bait to chum for the following evening, which I did after releasing the carp.
The following night, I invited my friend Warren along to night fish for carp with me. When we got to my spot, I was surprised to find a couple people fishing there. They weren't carpers, they we just fishing with worms, while drinking and playing loud music. Extremely annoying, but has to be expected from time to time when pre baiting public waterways.
We set up a couple hundred feet up the bank, and sure enough, my rod with a popup fireball boilie got hit. Warren landed another mid size carp, didn't bother with any pics. Eventually, as it got darker and the mosquitoes came to feed, the annoying couple on our original spot finally left. We immediately moved the lines there, hoping that their blasting music hadn't scared of al the carp that I worked to attract with all my pre baiting.
Took about 45 minutes, something started toying with my line baited with a sweet dream popup boilie. I though it may have been a redhorse sucker, after a couple successive false runs. Whether or not, we'll never know, as the third attempt was successful. Warren hooked into the fish, and from the peeling drag that resulted, I knew it was way too big to be a sucker.
After an intense battle, we finally got a glimpse of the big carp near shore. Once I netted and lifted it, I knew that Warren had just landed his new personal best carp. The scale confirmed it, this beauty weighed in at 31 lbs, Warren's biggest ever!
After another couple unsuccessful night time carp outings, I gave them a rest for now, instead choosing to chase predators like bass, pike and muskies from my float tube while water and outer temps are warm enough. Will probably resume night time carp fishing again later in August.