In a recent Fish’n Canada episode we featured Carp fishing on Rice Lake. Ang and I learned a ton on this shoot as we put our Princecraft to use… not a normal practice while fishing for Carp.
I used the same boat in a previous show but in a different manner. During that show I put the stern of the boat as close to shore as possible and then stuck the Powerpoles as well as the skeg of the Mercury into the bottom and as an extra means of support, threw an anchor out to one side. I could then cast out toward deeper water, set my rod in a holder and wait. This worked great since the wind stayed low. The key to Carp fishing is maintaining a fixed position with very little rod movement.
On our most recent Rice Lake Carp trip, Ang was fishing deeper water off of shore and had to angle the boat towards his fishing area. In doing so, we didn’t really know what to expect from the fish. Our findings from his outing were simple.
When a Carp grabbed his bait, 100% of the time it headed for deep water, straight out from the bank. There might have been a slight angle but for the most part it was out and away. The times when Ang cast his presentation parallel to the shore, those Carp that grabbed and beelined it to deeper water put a huge curve or bow in his line, giving the fish a great chance at detecting the hook and ejecting it.
Simple solution (see diagram): anchor your boat in a fashion as to allow you to present your bait(s) in a direction towards deep water. The straighter the line to rod to deep water the better.
The question then remains, why use a boat for Carp fishing if the best possible angle to set lines is from the shore out to deep water? Would shore fishing not be better?
There are a couple of answers.
First off, a boat can give you access to pretty much the entire lake. Shore access is limited because of private property (cottages, resorts etc) or by being over-grown with thick brush and too swampy to be able to walk or wade in.
Secondly, a boat offers Carp anglers the mobility to chase down a fish if need be. If a large Carp gets hung up in a weed bed, there’s a much better chance of freeing the beast from the tangled mess by getting close with the boat. Shore anglers are pretty much stuck to their little piece of land with “some” lateral movement.