For whatever wonderful reason our average fish size is up several pounds from last year and our largest fish are bigger by 5 to 8 pounds. Three of Kevin’s top four biggest carp have been caught this year.
Is it that they are taking advantage of the wealth of large gobies in the area? Or are they just now reaching a mature age, developing the grotesque, obese look that you see in the jumbo European fish? I’m going to guess that it has more to do with the food supply and mild weather. All we know for sure is that we hope this trend continues.
Two of the beasts came on one of Kevin’s bunny strip flies in yellow, a simple and generic fly that he ties in a range of colors and material variations. Kevin has never named or put the pattern out there because it is about like every other bunny strip fly. But because he is getting requests for the “exact” pattern and also that he nailed two of his biggest carp ever on the same fly, he has given it the name “Beast Bait”. You can find a good picture and tying instructions on the Indigo site.
Last week Kevin was on a trip and they spotted and got a twenty foot follow from, in Kevin’s estimate, the largest carp he has seen. Why didn’t he have the yellow bunny strip tied on?
Moldy Chum posted up a big carp from England the other day. It was a huge fish, but the angler also chummed it up with “dog biscuits.” Up here on Beaver Island we have very big carp, carp pushing the 40 pound mark. And we don’t even use chum to catch them.
