Carp Rigs - Small Rigs - Big Fish

Kids, smaller than full grown humans, have the whole small hands, short stature thing going on.  Given these challenges modifications to your fishing reel is pretty easy.  The Blogvangelist and his crew of local kiddoes use small spinning gear to whack some monsters.

Said monsters take alot of drag.  Runs of 50-100 yards and 30+ pound Buffalo are common when she decides to test your angling skills.  Over gun your kid with a heavy rig, the rig whoops the kid.  Give him your chronarch and $200.00 flipping stick, it will suffer a break somewhere within 5" of the rod tip or jump off the dock towed by a large critter.

This results in some cursing.

To help all situations I suggest a Penn 430 or Diawa BG 10 on a decent 6 foot medium action rod.  This tutorial is about the reel.  My 20 year old Penn 430ss is smooth as glass and been through many battles.  Line capacity says 300 yards of 20 pound braid.  Well, I choose half that and drop on 150 yards of 20lb braid as backing.

Step 2.  Trilene XL 10lb mono uni to uni knotted to the braid

Step 3.  Fill the spool.  This one is a bit front loaded, I'll sort that out on the first big one we catch.

Step 3 - go fishing

Step 4.

Pictures - yeah, I know, the video kid doesn't have a life jacket on - had to create excitement somehow.   He's caught a bunch of these guys and a few buffaloe's over 30. 

We've used this rig all over Texas including the surf for redfish.  Gear is the right size, line capacity can land a whopper, and the kids have fun.  Keep your reels clean, drag pressure moderate, and let the fish run.

Take kids fishing and build the next generation. 

Small Boy with Laugh Lines

A.D.D. is AWESOME

Carp are a kids BEST FRIEND

With the full moon almost here and a subtle wind shift to the SE it is carp fishing time.  Actually this report is about great conditions to catch very large buffalo.

Just to make it real clear to those north of Texas - 80 degrees and sunny here!......For the last 3 weeks. 

Taking the sunny and beautiful conditions upon us I ran out to my buddy's lake house and fed the fish half a bag of deer protein - time stamp on that is 2:30 pm. 

Then I went home to take a nap, let the fish find it and await the rising moon.  (which my camera couldn't seem to take a picture of....)

The boys couldn't wait for the moon rise.  We ate quickly and took off early.

You may think this is ugly, but your kids won't...... 

Little feisty drag slipper.

These little guys stayed around and kept us busy but, not exactly the target.  So the boys went swimming and I took some photographs to make this post more exciting.  How so you say?  I am going to use the old "tantalize with action then go back to the beginning" trick.

The bait I use is 1/3 flour, 1/3 corn meal, 1/3 oatmeal and a bit of brown sugar.  I then add (preferably red soda) but something sweet.  You make a dough ball that is very, very, tight.  Consistency should be like modeling clay NOT biscuit dough.

Use 1/0 or 2/0 circle hooks, offset or non-offset is fine.  Why use circle hooks? Because they work better than any hook for these guys.

Two things:

1.  Do not set the hook.  When you see the line start to tighten just pick up the slack in a sweeping motion.  If the fish hit it while you aren't looking you will catch almost all of those guys

2.  EXPOSE the hook point.  Do not bury it in the bait.  Like this:

Darkness falls and the moon rises (which my camera couldn't manage to photograph....... but it would have been cool!)  Of course, the kids are going nuts running around throwing rocks and all that having a great time.  But one of the kids, Zack, is totally fishing absorbed.  I helped him catch his first carp a few years ago and now - obsession.  He is NOT playing - this guy is fishing.  To date his best carp was 17 pounds.  Like I said - it was 17 pounds, now it's 25 lbs per his handy scale.....

For comparison's sake - big buffalo measured against Thomas - my 8 year old.

Night photo's are always hard and my camera person this evening was 14 years old.  She was quite pre-occupied with being cool and just "getting this over with".....

Anyway, for those of you worried about the artsy fartsy part all I gotta say is "scoreboard".  Better a decent picture of big ones than an artist rendition of a 7" brook trout on a rock, next to that driftwwood that always seems to be around.  We've all seen the small ones....

As the moon rose things got really quiet.  No bites for 45 minutes or so.  My ADD is just about to win the war of waiting, Thomas runs up to report something, perfect timing, last fish of the night - about 8 lbs.

Not bad for a Saturday full moon evening, the kids playing, swimming, throwing rocks and fishing. 

Hey, you, yeah, you the dude with the bass boat, take a kid fishing sometime.  I suggest carp - scoreboard.

Small Boy with Laugh Lines

A.D.D. is AWESOME