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+--- Thread: Bear River 32 inch............... (/showthread.php?tid=1076984)
Bear River 32 inch............... - Tin-Can - 06-28-2019
............CARP [:/] 32 inches and 18.8 lbs of female full of eggs.
Yesterday we got to the bottom of the river at the bridges with 2 primary objectives.
1) Test the new SkeeterBeaters I bought on-line. Very fine mesh, cut to fit the specific size of the front windows of my truck. Magnets sewn in all around the edge seems. Placed over the windows on outside, they allow the windows to remain open and let air flow thru but keep out all the pesky flying and biting flies and no-see-ums.
They work very well even in the brisk winds that were blowing.
2) Replenish our stock of cut carp bait.
Objective #2 was accomplished within 5 minutes of getting out of the truck. All 3 gates at the bridges were closed. River level is WAY down. So far down that the gate area has very little water on either side. On the outflow side, there were possibly hundreds of carp trying to stay in the spawning beds. Wife baited up with a worm on a #4 bait hook and dropped her line in the water just past the rock beds.
I informed her that those carp had sex on the brain and not feeding. I set up my heavy Cat Ugly Stick with a 6/0 Octopus hook, no bait, and a 3 oz. pyramid weight and tossed it right in the middle of a large hoard of carp flappin and splashin in the shallows. IMMEDIATELY my line went tight and I did a hard hook set. Snagged a big carp right behind the gill flap.
Whooo-hooo fight was on. But with not much water for her to swim in, I was able to drag that monster momma up to the concrete embankment, lean way down with my landing net and lift her up to dry ground and far enough away from the edge that she couldn't flop back in.
I got my scale on her and she was 18.8 lbs, but I didn't get a photo of the scale.
Was able to use a recent gift (Fish Billy) from my oldest son to knock her into submission.
My Cat Contest bump board has a fillet board clip at one end. I built that board to serve 2 functions. As a bigger board to cut up carp for bait, and a contest measuring board. I know, there isn't a Carp section in the Cat contest, but wanted to see this momma's size before I rendered her into my bait bucket. [
]32 inches. Sure wish it had been a Cat...................[:/]
Wife hooked up a smaller Carp awhile later, but lucky for that one, my bait bucket was full, so it was released.
Those were the only 2 fish caught, but we were able to sit in my truck with windows down and watch our lines without the interference of the various species of biting flys.
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Re: [Tin-Can] Bear River 32 inch............... - SkunkedAgain - 06-28-2019
Between you and Lynn and your teases you're getting me so I probably won't even look at the post when someone does get a monster cat... Nice bugle beak, it looks like it is even a little bigger than you claimed... That had to be a fight, those carp are known to fight bigger than their size, so I'll bet that was a fun fish... Thanks for the story... Later J
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Re: [Tin-Can] Bear River 32 inch............... - Piscophilic - 06-28-2019
Thanks for sharing the story and pictures. I am amazed you could cast into that melee and hook the really big one!
If I were scoring, I think I'd give you 33" on that one[
]Probably good that I'm not scoring though.
The cats were hot again today at UL this morning. I just can't find any bump fish. Lots of fun and tired arms though!
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Re: [Tin-Can] Bear River 32 inch............... - Ahi1953 - 06-29-2019
you got me also Forest. Though you hooked into a monster cat. just to find you were talking about bait
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Re: [Tin-Can] Bear River 32 inch............... - catchinon - 06-29-2019
What they said. I'd sure be glad for that much good bait though.
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Re: [SkunkedAgain] Bear River 32 inch............... - Tin-Can - 06-29-2019
Yeah, [laugh] probably be the only thing I catch this year even close to 32". It's hard to tell in that photo, but she was right at 32".
Since she was snagged and not mouth hooked, if she had been in water deeper than the couple inches in the rocks where they were all jammed up, she would have been one heck of a fight. As it was, just because of her weight and having to lift her up the side of a concrete irrigation gate to a point I could get her in my landing net, I was lucky something didn't break.
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