LA River Delicacy

by **DarkShadow** » March 25th, 2022, 11:02 am

Apologies if this has been posted before, but .... eat up! :bananadance:

https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/eati ... 62c610169b

by **clee** » March 25th, 2022, 11:54 am

Saw that years ago. Enjoy your *, mercury, * laced and much more fish meat.

by **Rasputinj** » March 26th, 2022, 10:10 pm

That video had a good deal of views. Lino does some guiding now for Carp.

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by **huntingtheriverking** » March 30th, 2022, 10:13 pm

Yuck.
That guy is dialed in on the urban carp action though. The LA River carp scene is interesting. Caught several on conventional, but no luck - yet - on the fly.

by **Rasputinj** » April 1st, 2022, 8:20 pm

huntingtheriverking wrote:Yuck.
That guy is dialed in on the urban carp action though. The LA River carp scene is interesting. Caught several on conventional, but no luck - yet - on the fly.

Fishing for Carp makes trout fishing look easy. It is frustrating at times fishing for Carp. LAR is an interesting place, fishing in homeless encampments and working around trash. But, that tug from a Carp is addictive.

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by **clee** » April 2nd, 2022, 9:17 am

Actually fishing for carp isn't hard at all. You just need to fish for them when they are actively mudding (feeding). If they aren't you basically have almost no chance of hooking one. Therefore you're best bet is to fish water that is either shallow or has great visibility. Watch them feed. Lead your fly and it's almost a guarantee you'll be on.

Brian if you want your first carp on the fly, come down to OC and I'll show you how to get one.

by **DarkShadow** » April 3rd, 2022, 10:13 am

Question?

Do carp spawn in open water? Or do they come into the shallows?

I was at a lake yesterday and there were hundreds of huge carp seemingly in the middle of the lake, with their backs slowly waking the surface. Mind you, this was 50+ meters out. Once in a while, one would implode and the fish around him/her would follow suit.

I've never seen this type of activity before. Usually when they spawn, I see them around tules, or shallow. I've never seen them cruising in the middle of the lake, backs barely popping out.

by **clee** » April 3rd, 2022, 10:28 am

DS

My experience is they spawn in the shallows but I could be wrong. The point of the males bumping a female is in the hopes of getting her to lay her eggs so he can fertilize them. I can't imagine successful insemination happening in the deeper areas of water. Seems like they'd miss more than getting the job done. But who knows.

Were they actually spawning or could they just be in feeding frenzy on a hatch?

by **DarkShadow** » April 3rd, 2022, 7:53 pm

clee wrote:Were they actually spawning or could they just be in feeding frenzy on a hatch?

I have zero clue. I was stuck on shore and couldn't get a good look, but there didn't seem to be any hatch that i could see. More importantly, when the carp are feeding on the surface, you can see their lil round mouths sucking down stuff.

These things were just cruising on top, waking, in the middle of the lake....like carp zombies.

by **huntingtheriverking** » April 8th, 2022, 3:35 pm

DarkShadow wrote:
clee wrote:Were they actually spawning or could they just be in feeding frenzy on a hatch?

I have zero clue. I was stuck on shore and couldn't get a good look, but there didn't seem to be any hatch that i could see. More importantly, when the carp are feeding on the surface, you can see their lil round mouths sucking down stuff.

These things were just cruising on top, waking, in the middle of the lake....like carp zombies.

I've seen that before, I believe it was associated with spawning.

I've also run into them in urban creeks (and once in the San Gabriel Reservoir) when they were actively rooting /feeding on the bottom. Had them chase my microcrank bait, ultralite gear, like a school of stripers, heck of a fight.

Clee, I'm down. I think I can guess the spot...and I've wanted to try it for carp on the fly for a while.

by **clee** » April 10th, 2022, 8:04 pm

huntingtheriverking wrote:Clee, I'm down. I think I can guess the spot...and I've wanted to try it for carp on the fly for a while.

I haven't been in like 10 years. Just so you don't waste time traveling to OC I'll do some scouting to make sure its like it was before if so I'll get back to you.

by **clee** » April 15th, 2022, 8:25 pm

Brian

Reconned my old carp stopping grounds the other day only to find most of the choice areas are now posted. That's a shock to me. There are some areas still unposted. It looks like there still access but fishing maybe limited to only certain areas and they were never my choice spots. May or may not be worth your time considering your drive and costs of gas nowadays.

The other area, which you might be thinking of, I really don't care for and I've only fished it a couple of times. That said if you want to head out there one day I'd be willing to meet you out there but unlike my spot, which in the olden days I could confidently get you on fish, I can't make any guarantees with this area.

Either spot just let me know. Just DM if you want in.

by **DarkShadow** » April 22nd, 2022, 12:33 pm

So, turns out these carp are feeding. :-D

For $hits and giggles, I took a 5 weight with me this time, with a 3X leader, and some 'shad' flies.

This time, instead of being so far out in the middle of the lake, the carp were in inches of water. I *think* they were picking off dead shad, because the shad were in full spawn mode and invading the shallows.

I thought I could just creep up to the pods and I realized I needed some stealth.

But, found a place where I could hide and get the fly in front of their faces, and well....i hooked my first one. * tank. Took me out to the middle of the lake, to my backing and more, and shook the fly loose about 5 minutes later. I can see how that is so much fun.

Wound all my backing and fly line in, and made another cast along the shore. Bam, 2.25# crappie. A few casts later, a 5# channel cat that also gave the 5 weight a work out. The next few fish were 3.5 - 4# largemouth. I had broken my personal bests for all 3 species in 10 minutes. Glad I brought the fly rod out.