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Feature article
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Zen and the art of carp fishing
By George Thwaites
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| George Thwaites is a Sports and Outdoors Writer for the Kingsport Times-News |
In case you hadn’t already heard, I caught a big fish on a nut a couple of weeks ago.
As you can well imagine, this is an immensely fun statement to make. “I caught a big fish on a nut,” is not some thing you get to say every day. Judging from the reactions I’ve gotten, it’s not a phrase that’s heard very frequently, either.
The credit for this feat goes to Larry Robbins of Coeburn , whose Appalachian Outdoor Fishing Show is a cable staple in Southwest Virginia. He took me up to Bark Camp Lake in Scott County. He pro vided the medium-weight spinning rod equipped with open faced reel. He baited the hook with the acorn. He showed me where to cast. After I hooked and played a 14.7-pound grass carp, he helped me with the landing net. Then we safely released it.
Of course, “grass carp” is the everyday name of this fish. Now that I’ve actually caught one and found it to be a substantially more hand some species than common carp, I prefer the proper name: white amur. I like the sound of it.
Robbins knows all about fishing for mainstream game species like bass and trout with conventional sporting tackle and tactics. I can vouch. He’s good. But he approaches fishing with the kind of intellectual curiosity you’d expect of a guy who teaches an accredited angling course at Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap. Diverse species and offbeat fishing methods fascinate him.
A lot of guys know how to fish for largemouth bass. But not nearly as many people know how to consistently catch trout on a casting bubble and dry fly, much less how to expertly handle a 20-foot telescoping cane pole. I’ve got to get one of those 20-footers, by the way. Stuff like that brings out the kid in me.
The grass carp in Bark Camp Lake were an irresistible angling challenge for Robbins because he’d been told by Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologists that these fish were not susceptible to traditionally hook and line methods. These herbivorous fish were originally stocked in the lake chiefly to control coontail — a prolific aquatic plant that is more or less an underwater equivalent of kudzu.
Robbins said that he knew if a fish had to eat, there had to be a way to catch it. But how do you entice a fish that feeds on plant matter to take a lure or baited hook? Grass carp are by nature not predatory. They are grazers. Their usual food source never makes any effort to get away, so there is no strike response to be stimulated. Further more, wherever you find grass carp there is invariably a great surplus of food. That’s why these fish were stocked in the first place.
One autumn day while fishing on the lake Robbins finally had his Newtonian break through. He happened to be watching when an acorn from an overhanging oak branch plopped into the water. As he followed its descent into the shallows, a massive grass carp swooped out and ate it.
Evidently, acorns are a tasty seasonal treat white amur favor so highly that the sound of an acorn hitting the water in autumn is like a dinner bell to them. If a big grass carp is in the vicinity when one hits, it’ll usually nab the nut before it touches bottom.
After considerable trial and error, Robbins deter mined which acorns the fish preferred (white oak) and figured out how to bait a hook with an acorn in such a manner that the hook remained unobtrusive to the fish while also allowing for a solid hook set once the bait was taken. He scouted the shoreline for the places where white oak acorns were most likely to fall directly or even indirectly in to the water. And he was in business.
I have a copy of the show Robbins taped solo while fish ing for these things last year. It is, without question, one of the most enjoyable fishing shows I’ve ever watched. These big 20-plus pound fish literally tow him around the lake. It’s a hoot.
Now I know there are fish bigots out there who’ll say: “So what! They’re carp! Those are trash fish!”
While I have enjoyed a life long love affair with the salmonids and sunfishes, I am truly proud of my big honking grass carp. It was a marvelous fish, and great fun to catch. There is a difference between “rough fish” and “trash fish.”
American anglers tend to be biased toward predatory game fish species — those that in the very least feed on invertebrates. We don’t quite know what to make of herbivorous fish, so we don’t have much use for them. Like most forms of prejudice, the logic is flawed. If we applied the same criteria to mammals, we wouldn’t think a moose would be worth shooting unless it ate rabbits.
Non-American anglers think differently. Several years ago I met a fisherman from the United Kingdom who was convinced the TVA reservoirs in Northeast Tennessee harbored a world record carp. He was devoting his inheritance to the pursuit of such a fish. While he didn’t catch the record during his visit, he did discover that carp in our area are particularly fond of Pal’s Frenchie Fries.
The last I heard of him, he was fishing some promising waters in Hungary. Too bad there are no Pal’s in Hungary. He must have run out of fries by now.
Carp certainly can respond to absurd-sounding bait. But don’t think for a minute that folks across the big pond don’t take their carp fishing very seriously. The equipment is sophisticated and expensive. The obsession is genuine. The fish possess sporting qualities which British and European anglers truly lose sleep over. Carp are naturally suspicious, spooky fish. And they fight like the devil when hooked.
Since I caught that fish at Bark Camp Lake I’ve read that white amur are considered a food source in parts of mainland China. This may be an endorsement of the inherent flavor of these fish. Or it may not be. With all due respect to the immense accomplishments of Chinese civilization, there is not much that crawls, swims or flies that hasn’t been on the menu in old Cathay at one time or another. It’s kind of like Louisiana in that regard.
The food value of Bark Camp Lake grass carp is a pretty moot point. In these waters, white amur are a se mi-protected species — catch and release only. The fish stocked here are triploid, which means they are sterile, non-reproducing “mules.” Each fish can live 15 years or more. And we want them to live full, happy lives. These fish have a job to do.
In the meantime, simply hooking one remains a supreme challenge. The acorn method only works in the fall when the nuts are dropping. Even then, these fish are extremely skittish. Robbins continues to investigate other methods for other times of the year. There have been some advances.
He has noted that whenever grass is mown near the Wise municipal reservoir, grass carp are attracted to the floating clippings that are blown out over the water. He’s managed to catch a few by carefully baiting a hook with a single blade of grass.
If you ask me, that is cool beyond words.
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George Thwaites is a Sports and Outdoors Writer for the Kingsport Times-News. Attempt to disrupt his chi via e-mail at gthwaites@timesnews.net
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