The vacation continued with renewed vigour on monday as I drove vaguely northwards towards Cape Cod in Massachusetts. My goal was to eventually see the humpback whales that are rumoured to be prowling those northern waters. With ethanol mixed fuel in the engine, my Honda civic meandered in fatigue ever northwards. I passed through New Jersey and into New York. As usual the course took on a very irregular pattern. Stops were made here and there. I watched some loggers busily at their work at the shire of Woodbridge. Observations were made on some farmers harvesting corn outside the Village of Gardiner. Finally, after hours of random driving, I drove over a bridge near the town of Wytheville. As I drove by, I saw these incredibly huge fish swimming underneath the bridge. Obviously, one cannot let such a good opportunity pass by. So I parked the car nearby, grabbed my rod and went fishing.
The giant fish turned out to be Eurasian carp, an aquatic nuisance species that is devouring entire marine ecosystems along the eastern U.S. There must have been dozens, scores of these huge carp swimming lazily under that bridge. Trouble was, I couldn't catch them! I tried every lure and bait line that I had to no avail. The huge critters simply won't bite.
Along the way I caught a whole lot of other fish, but no carp. That night, at a local Hostel, I researched Eurasian fishing methods in regards to capturing carp and also of the carp species itself. This Eurasian species apparently reproduces four times faster than native American fish of the same weight class, it is a carrier of waterborne diseases that wipes out other fish, and it eats everything, including grass and garbage. I learned of the hair rig created by the English, and of various chumming techniques mastered by the Chinese. Next morning, with these new tools in hand, I went back to that bridge. I chummed the waters with hundreds, nay, thousands of kernals of corn, and I used the English hair rig. But the fishing gods were unkind that day. I caught dozens of other fish, but the carp just won't bite. No wonder they are so bloody effective at wiping out other aquatic species here, Carp is simply far superior at surviving human predation. In anycase, I managed to acquire:
15 Black Crappies
5 Sunfish
3 White Perch
2 Pumpkinseeds
1 Small Mouth Bass
1 Yellow Perch
1 Catfish
Roughly 30lbs of fish were thus harvested. I wandered some more before heading back to home. My plans of seeing those whales will have to wait.
1 comment:
Carp are scavengers - so the only bait they will take is something that has been sitting around awhile. I guess if the were extremely hungry (say in the summer months when the water is warm and their metabolism is faster) they might grab corn or rotting meat after 1 or 2 passes of seeing the stuff on the bottom of the creek. But the best way is to use a 'gut' line. You bait a bunch of treble hooks on a sturdy line, tie it to a tree, and come back in a day or 2.
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