The wife is on a bus tour with her sister so I was assigned the task of getting some carp for her cats. Went down to fish but they were right on the shore in recently flooded grass so I went back for the gig. Gigged the big one first toss then I missed another further down the shore.

Tossed in the line caught 4 smaller ones most have been running the size of the big one but today they ran smaller.

What a way to spend some fun time. I am jealous. I am spending lots of time in the shop lately. Some day I will have time for those fun things when I retire.

How many acres is your pond Jerry?

7-8 square miles the lake I live on is shallow but covers a lot of area. It’s been deeper than in the past so it’s twice as deep as before the recent 8.5+ rains should increase or hold the current levels.

Carp are pretty good eating too! Give them a try.

In years past the wife and I “mostly her” could fill a full sized freezer and a half sized one during the summer when coon were worth targeting. I run a meat-saw and cut them up frozen pretty easily but the big scales are a pain.

They have been up shallow in the lake by me last few weeks sure is a lot of them
It seems

Need to shoot them with your bow.

Wrecked my shoulder can’t even draw my Q2 bow I do have a sling spear that I can use. I have little strength above my shoulder but with the arm below the shoulder it works fine. If that shoulder rolls it sounds like popcorn popping.

Nice

I saw some guys shooting from the shoulder of Highway 30 today at carp in the road ditch. Water was from the flooding Des Moines River.

I have shot many of the common carp with my bow but have only been able to catch the larger Buffalo carp spawning a couple times.
Once these large Buffalo carp spawn you never see them again. These pics are Buffalo carp with largest one being 46 pounds.

They love the flooded backwaters and overflowing banks here they are some monsters.

You folks sure are bringing back some great memories for this old fart. Thank you. Years ago spent many days with bow in hand. One rebuilt shoulder and one with a torn rotator cuff put an end to that.

used to fish for carp all summer long when I was a yougun.
Fished the river that ran behind main street.
Sometimes I'd drag a bunch home for my Mom, she would bury them in her Garden.
It was a workout dragging 30-50 lbs of carp home going up hill for a 10 yr old kid.
But seeing it was for my Mom I'd do it occasional.
Years later I find out she was dreading that I'd drag home some fish every time I went fishing.
Funny that we were both putting ourselves out for each other.

One time we dragged a bunch of carp into the Fish shop and asked to see the owner.
Told the lady behind the counter that we wanted to sell some fish to him.
She told us in no uncertain terms "get out of here with those fish, if the boss seen you with those fish he'd probably buy them from you."
Didn't understand that at the time, but now I get a chuckle every time I think of that lady..

Just some carp stories I have.

42pound grass carp I shot last week from the Owens Station Road bridge over the Wallkill River. This is a small river and nobody I know has seen a fish this big in there. Usually just regular carp up to 20 pounds. My hat next to fish for reference.

The lake behind the house is a quick cycling lake it can go from 3 feet for several years to 20 feet deep for many years at one time it was a huge cattail lake the whole thing covered in them everywhere.

During the shallow times the carp would mass winter kill leaving tons dead on the shores.