Ive never gigged frogs but frog is hugely popular here in China so Ive had many times here. It's alright, like everything else they prepare they just randomly chop of the best parts bones and all and make you work to chew off the meat. Ive always wanted to try ground hog since we used to hunt them all the time and Ive heard they can be good. I was always afraid of rabies with coons and possum and groundhog. Since we got big fisher here. Here in Shanghai they love themselves some carp. At the live food markets they sell tons of it. But for some reason they like to chop it up from the tail up, keeping it alive as long as possible. Im guessing this is just a freshness thing? I mean they literally slap them to kind of wake them up to show customers the fish is still alive while the back half is sold off.
My brother in law is a guide here in Arizona his clients today were fishing for bass and accidently hooked into this thing. Arizona state record is 37 pounds and this would have beat that record by about 20 pounds, they did not weigh it, just took some pics and let it go. Afer they let it go he called me to look up the record and said whoops. They caught it on a shaky head at Apache Lake.
That is a big ass carp. It must have been fun to reel in. Carp are finicky bastards to hook and fight hard for their size but don't really play tricks. It used to go fish for them with white bread and hooks in a city pond on cool summer evenings all the time when I was young (and practiced catch & release at a young age, well at least with carp)... but I have never seen any as big as that. Not even grass carp.
Carp season will be starting here soon, and the ditches will be full of them. Here's what my carp fishing pole looks like: Spoiler
Bass . . . carp . . . same thing. Actually, calling a carp a bass is insulting to the carp. Carp are great fighters. I bet that hog put up one hell of a fight.
That and just how difficult they can be to hook makes me surprised a lot people don't fish for them. Of course, they don't really taste like anything, but that isn't what a lot of fishermen care about either. I've always found that carp are more difficult to hook than most fish... they can sense you really, really well and you need to be certain that when you set the hook, it's on. Otherwise, nothing. You know you hook one when the spool starts flying.
I have some friends that do the compound bow carp fishing. Seems like it could be fun anyone else here do it? Other than that my old roommate lives and dies for catfish fishing. Dude is nuts for "bustin the hogs."
A couple of my friends who have gator tags every year use a compound bow to get a line on the sonsabitches before using a bang stick to finish them off. They swear that it's the most fun you can have on an airboat, but no thanks. Heard way too many stories of shit going awry, and I know it's addictive, so it would only be a matter of time before I lose a limb/bow/boat/life. I'd rather just not even start. I'll stick to surf fishing with a healthy buzz.
I've done this once before, and I agree with your buddies- its an absolute blast. Another thing that's fun is gar spearing. We ride around the shallow canals back in the marsh in duck boats, armed with long poles fixed with 5-prong frog gigs on there ends, with about a 5ft skinny rope attached to the other end that we then wrap around our wrist (so you can retrieve the spear after you throw it). Basically all we do is ride around and drink beer while one person stands on the bow, throwing the spear when the see a gar sunning near the top of the water. It doesn't sound like much, but it is a rush to kill something by throwing a friggin' spear at it.
I know this pic looks fake, but it's not. This kid caught this fish. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/119288774.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdo ... 88774.html</a> Want proof? It's all on video. JustBigMuskies was in the boat filming for their next dvd and got it all on tape. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.justbigmuskies.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.justbigmuskies.com/</a> In other news, I hit the Mississippi River last night and it was crazy high. The cans were all under water. We hit the water at about 4:30. The first two spots were too hard to fish because of the current. We got to the third spot and found a cloud of bait fish and it was on like Donkey Kong. Three limits of saugers/eyes in the box in about an hour! The three of us caught upwards of 40+ fish in the 3 hours we were on the water, and that includes the first 30 or 45 mins in those first two spots. I've never seen the river this hot.
Very happy for my brother in law and his business partner, channel 5 in Phoenix did a 7 minute segment on them yesterday and included that big ass carp, nothing like free advertising. http://www.kpho.com/local-video/index.html?grabnetworks_video_id=4636913
I'm thinking of getting one of these little guys for trout fishing this year. I'm currently fishing with a 15 ft fiberglass V-hull monster that's probably about as old as I am; it came with the cottage. Its a good utility boat for hauling supplies across the lake, but its sensitive to wind and my MinnKota often struggles to keep it on track. I found a 2009 online for less than half the price new, supposedly in excellent condition. I'm very tempted. http://www.sundolphinboats.com/oz/4/com/fish/pro/pro.html
Cell phone pic's from the field. Took her at about 85 yards, initially she was facing me with her head down eating and I was going to just do a neck shot but at the last second she turned so I just hit the right shoulder at a slight quartering angle. Broke the shoulder, took out the heart, hit the off shoulder and then the bullet rode down the ribs and blew out the back left leg breaking that as well. Somehow all of the internals minus the heart and lungs were intact, not sure how that happened.
Went Sturgeon fishing for the first time ever yesterday. Signed up with a charter company, STS, that's about 10 minutes from my place. It was only a couple hundred bucks a head, and was 10 hours on the water. Even though it was cold and wet, it was an incredible day and we've already booked our next one. Showed up at the dock, not sure what to expect, and found a kick-ass dual-engine jet boat waiting for us. Here's the short trip out to the first spot, and my friend is making fun of the fact that I have a pink camera. (What can I say, it was supposed to be black, according to the packaging, but I opened it up and it was pink.) 10 Minutes at the first spot, and we catch a damn decent sized fish. It fought pretty hard for about half an hour, and weighed somewhere around 70lbs. Then we were jetting off to yet another spot. The guide was worried about the day, as flooding was a problem and the water was absolutely full of trees and crap that was being washed down the river. We even pulled into a parking lot. As in this area here was a day-camp parking/rest area 2 days ago, and was now 12 feet under. How the hell can there be fish in here? Well, 2 minutes later, we have a double-hit, and the 4 of us on the boat were scrambling like hell trying to keep the lines from getting crossed and getting the fish on board. It went perfectly, and they fought like crazy, but we got them on board. The guide was a bit disappointed about the day, as we only landed 7 fish where he's used to having 20-25 a day. Still, despite the weather and the shitty water conditions, we had an absolute blast, and will be doing it again soon.
Rocks on the rapture. 30", 15lb fatty. Trolling in the Chesapeake. Unfortunately, two were lost but there was a lot of action and marks for a short run this late in the season.
Welcome to the club. It's hard to describe how truly powerful these fish are. They do whatever the hell they want. Those are some nice dinosaurs you hooked into, especially that first one. What a tank! I'm guessing they're whites and not lakers like we have around here. Those suckers get HUGE compared to the ones around here. It's crazy that you found them in 12 FOW. We usually don't go any shallower than 40'. How did you fish for them? Circles with cut bait behind locomotive worth of lead?
These are in the Fraser River, and with all the flooding we've had, they've gone to really shallow water to pick up the tasty bits off of the newly flooded ground. The guide said it was in 12-20' because of the water temps. All the water is cold this time of year, so they're going for the slow moving, warmer water. Later on in the season, as the water warms up (less glacier feed), they'll go as low as 80-100'. Because it's a fast flowing river, we'd find the slowest moving waters, anchor the boat, throw out the sea anchor, and then we had 4 lines. We had various baits on each, with one rod set up for "The Monster", in that only monsters would usually take it. Each line had about 5lbs of lead about 4' above the bait, and then it'd be a short cast off the stern, and then wait. Didn't have to wait long; the guide knew his shit, and knew where they were. Here's some of the bait we were using. A favourite seemed to be lake eels. Here's a pic of some of the bigger fish around here: He said the biggest one he's caught was just under 12' long, and weighed 650lbs or more. And you're right... I've never had a fish fight that hard as the "small" one I brought in. We were using 150lbs test, and the drag on the reels was set up like it was a winch, and the rod bent right over, line started to strip out, and I thought I was going to lose the rod overboard.
A friend of mine turned me on to the Orvis Flyfishing Guide podcast last week, and I downloaded all of the past episodes. Ended up listening to about 7 hours of them while working in the garage today, and I have to say that I was impressed. I'd guess that about half of it was stuff that I knew about, but the other half had some interesting takes and info that I enjoyed. They also have one on Hunting and Shotgunning that I'm downloading tonight. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.orvis.com/intro.aspx?subject=6413" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.orvis.com/intro.aspx?subject=6413</a> Not sure how many around here are into fly fishing, but thought I'd share.