Carp Through the Ice?

I never really thought I'd get too interested in ice fishing. Honestly. But the more I do it the more I enjoy myself. It is not fly fishing and will never come close to the perfectness that fly fishing suits me, but it is giving me another angle of fish observation. It is my view that catching, observing, and studying fish by any means is what makes a good fly angler. And just by ice fishing I am unlocking some doors to things in fly fishing that I couldn't have opened had I not decided to pick up a jigging rod and break some holes in some frozen ponds and lakes.

Noah and I decided to try something a bit unusual yesterday. We decided to try to catch carp through the ice. We had done our homework, we knew where we were most likely to get it done. Armed with jigging rods, hand-lines, bolt rigs, corn, and jigs, we were fairly confident we'd at least have opportunities, and that we did.

The first bunch of fish that I caught were, unsurprisingly, not carp. They were small pale bluegills which were more than happy to eat a piece of corn on one of my handmade lead jigs. When I saw a much bigger, pale fish come into view and take in the jig and corn in with its's rubbery, wide mouth, I was a bit taken aback and completely messed up the hookset.

As I was landing the first non-bluegill, a sizable golden shiner, Noah noticed something odd. It turned out that we had missed another chance to catch a carp through the ice. His set rod with bolt rig had gone from it's propped and braced position. Not simply moved on the ice, but noiselessly vanished. Gone. No evidence it had ever been. Down the hole, in tow by what could only have been a substantial carp. Gone.

I found it very hard not to be immensely amused by such a ridiculous event. Noah found it very easy not to be amused, after all it was his gear that had basically just gotten flushed down the toilet. From there, Noah attempted with no success to recover the rod, and I continued to catch a few fish before Noah decided we should go to Cabelas to replace the lost reel, which was much more valuable than the rod.

From there we visited two last ponds, one of which held promise of carp, and indeed I watched a large one cruise by the hole and evidence suggested some had been through corn I had deposited in one hole. The other pond had no carp, but it did have very willing bluegills.

So. Carp through the ice is definitely something I will do. Corn is a good thing to tip jigs with for bluegills. And we need to get a bunch of tip-ups.

The current 15 day forecast very likely will leave much to be desired on the ice fishing front, but with more open water and warmer water I'll be employing long rods and thicker lines for the coming fishing trips.