winter carp

[Night Crawler 007]

Say I was just wondering is it possible to catch carp through the ice or are they pretty much in active in winter? As I have never run in to any while ice fishing.

[Crawlerman]

I've asked the same thing, and so far the only place that I've heard of people catching them during the winter through the is warm water backwaters of the Mississippi... some place I would NEVER go ice fishing... no thank you...

I've never heard of people catching them through the ice on a lake before. Someone said they liked to stay shallow during the winter. I might try to set a few tip-ups with corn or something in shallow next year in a lake I know thats filled with em.

[Guest]

Carp tend to slow down metabolically in winter and feed much less, though they still feed and can be caught. The key is finding them since they will bunch up in tight schoals and move very little. They will have chosen spots to do this, and they vary. Mostly they favour deep water in extreme cold, shallow when there's a chance of the water warming up ( but being fish, you never can tell sometimes )One deciding factor for their hiding place is the availability of food since they then don't have to expend valuable energy looking for it. At one of my favourite winter venues they hide up around an inlet where food and well oxygenated water is being washed in, so that type of spot is worth investigating. but even then you have to hit exactly the right spot - a yard or so out and nothing happens. I get round this by using a high attract bright bait, and a method feeder with plenty of good groundbait and a bit of hemp. Hopefully the smell will get them going then.

[Ranckenstuff]

E-steve- you do this thru the ice?

Hemp? interesting!

[Guest]

Lordy no!!
it doesn't get cold enough for long enough for us to get thick ice here. The whole location thing for them makes me think it would be hard to catch em that way, never mind the effect such cold weather would have on feeding. Still we do catch em here in pretty cold weather with thin ice patches round the margins.

[Lunker]

The carp you hear us catching on the mississippi isnt ice fishing, we're shorefishing warm water discharges like sewer and power plants. Once I get tired of drilling holes I head down to the miss. above to a spot I found through this site and catch tons of carp.

[mnfisherman]

Lunker,

Could you please tell me your spot were you can catch tons of carp in the winter? I've only tried one warm water discharge on the St. Croix with no luck and I actually live close to the Mississippi.

If it is a secret please e-mail me at [email protected]

Thank you very much!!

[Guest]

I'll chime in here. Last year on the MN... I was searching for some walleyes. I had a couple spots picked out from earlier in the fall... spots like EnglishSteve mentioned above. Didn't get any 'eyes... but nailed carp left and right. Not snagging them either. The vex was lit up like an X-Mas tree.. they were just milling about beneath me. I ended up icing quite a few... the biggest going over 10# I believe.
I've been waiting for the cold weather to shore up the ice a bit before I try it again this year.
It was a BLAST catching them through the ice.

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-FNC

"get on the natch"

[czl99]

FishNChester

Where were you fishing at.