brid caveney

Our Angler of the Month for January, 2023, is Brid Caveney, from Austin, Texas. Recently capturing his new PB in the coldest of conditions during a frosty Winter session, “Uncle Brid”, as he is affectionately known in the Texas Carp scene, is a dedicated and passionate Carp Angler with decades of experience under his belt! Truly a great accomplishment at 38.04 lbs!

Very well done, Brid!…Dedication at its finest!!

SOCIAL MEDIa - HELP NEEDED FROM OUR MEMBERS

American Carp Society Instagram & FaceBook Pages

Dear Carping Family,

Over the last few months we’ve notice that we’ve been battling the dreaded Algorithms that govern these two platforms.

These algorithms and the “powers that be” that write the code are making increasingly difficult for us to reach you all, our paying members and followers without us paying exorbitant advertising fees. Just simply following us doesn’t necessarily mean you get to see everything that we post these days…

We’d like to ask a favor: to help win the on going Algorithm battle, if you could please make it a daily 2 minute ritual to go to both our Instagram and Facebook accounts and place a like and a quick comment on all our carpy posts.

The more likes and comments we get on a daily basis, the more the “dreaded Algorithm” notices us (the American Carp Society) and allows a higher percentage of notifications to reach you and other members and followers both here in the US and around the world.

If you click on the little bell icon at the top right of our Instagram page and in that drop down menu, activate the Post, Stories, Reels and Videos notification buttons. Do the same on FaceBook by activating the notifications on our page.

That way you’ll always be notified when we post any type of carpy media.

Also please don’t forget to use our hashtag (#americancarpsociety) for a chance to have your photos and videos to be featured on our pages.

Note: Make sure your privacy settings allow sharing of your posts/videos in both Instagram and FaceBook

Together we can win the Algorithm battle thus helping to promote the many positive attributes of Carp Angling here on the North American continent…

Thanks so very much for your support of all our carpy endeavors :)

The American Carp Society

NOTABLE CAPTURES

We’re fortunate that we get to see the best carpy pictures from all over the USA from our members and friends. These photos below certainly caught our attention in the month of December! Congrats to everyone on the success of their angling sessions throughout the past year…We appreciate all of your tags and mentions, and can’t wait to see what you guys and gals catch in the new year! Don’t forget to tag us #americancarpsociety #jointheguiltyones and tag american_carp_society in your stories!

• @thatblue67

• Malissa Saia

• Piotr Zator

• Andrew

• Dan Krull

• Alex Perciuleac

into the unknown

What can be said that hasn’t already about the incredible session Austin, Brian and Brendan had last year on our beloved Blackfoot with Carl and Alex?

If you haven’t checked out the incredible film already, then it’s worth taking an hour and setting it aside for what has to be one of the very best representations of what Carp fishing in the USA can be…Friendship, weather challenges and some incredible fish are documented with both love and passion and an incredible edit from Carl.

It is pure joy to watch and be moved by the friendship that these guys all have together whilst in pursuit of their beloved quarry…As Carl said in the film, at the end of the day if you couldn’t share the experience with those close to you, it would certainly be diminished in it’s value. A True tale of friendship and camaraderie.

Look how far this incredible fish has come in the eyes of many anglers across the USA in the past 10 years!

And for our brothers, Carl and Alex, “Hands across the Ocean…”. Thank you so much for shining a spotlight on this incredible fish and sharing such a well documented experience with your mates!

It’s always been our philosophy here at The American Carp Society that the ‘fish is the star’ and this is a great representation of that….Very well done to everyone involved and many thanks guys for the tags!

THE NEW BARNABY’S REVENGE MAPEX RANGE OF PRODUCTS

We will be launching the very latest Barnaby’s Revenge Flavor, ‘MAPEX’, around the end of January timeframe, to add to the family of ASTERBURY CREME, MANDALA GOLD and DESERT FRUIT.

The ‘MAPEX’ flavor is something that we have been working on for a while and for some will remind them of some of the legendary flavors of the past that started it all! It is truly one of our favorites with a creamy overtone and smooth finish…it’s VERY carpy and has already been catching well!

As with the entire flavor range, the new ‘MAPEX’ will be available in:

BOILIES

SPRAYS

TIGERNUTS

THE JUICE

ONE SHOT

THE ‘PURE’ RANGE

One of the very first fish caught in the 2022 MCC was Paul Swider’s 27lb fish on a brand spankin’ new ‘MAPEX’ boilie.

We will send out a heads up to everyone in the members group and through the newsletter before it officially hits the stores. It will be available to members only for the first 4 months of 2023 and then will be available to the public thereafter.

THE MAPEX BOILIES

The new Mapex boilies are not a mass produced bait, but one that is lovingly hand crafted from every aspect of its conception through to the delivery of the final product to your door.

Specifically designed to stimulate a feeding response from the fish, the bait holds extremely high nutritional value as well longer term health benefits as a sustainable food source. With the inclusion of assorted naturally sourced vitamins and minerals, the bait can be used year round and is ‘all seasonal’ in its effectiveness.

Using only the highest quality locally sourced ingredients, the Barnaby’s Revenge range includes a complex blend of high protein ingredients, and of course the newly developed ‘MAPEX’ TM flavor stimulants, not available in any other product.

Every bag is hand rolled and packaged with love ‘from scratch’ and therefore only a limited quantity will be available each month to our members.

THE NEW ‘PURE’ BARNABY’S REVENGE FLAVORS

We have often been asked how we come up with the flavors for our range of bait products. As many of you will know they cannot be purchased anywhere else commercially, as they are all custom blended specifically per our specs and usage. We release just one flavor per year after extensive testing and research and make our decisions on that flavor release based upon a number of factors, including many years of research from those that have spent decades specifically in the field, professional flavorists and chemists that work within the industry and biologists and professional Angler’s that have a vast knowledge of the species and subject matter.

We do offer our custom sprays for direct usage on our hookbaits so that anglers can take the flavor in spray for to add it to their own choice of hookbaits, but have more recently been asked if our pure flavors would ever be available to anglers for their own personal use… for additives into their own mixes, boilie recipes and groundbaits.

Always wanting to support our members we decided to include new product into our range in 2023 ….the new ‘PURE’ flavors range.

The 2oz - 60ml bottles of pure flavor will be released in all of the ACS flavors:

ASTERBURY CREME

MANDALA GOLD

DESERT FRUIT

MAPEX

They will be packaged in dark green widemouth containers that will allow a 24mm boilie to be directly dipped into the flavor for ultimate coverage with no waste.

Keep an eye out for the release of the new ‘PURE’ range of flavors on WEDNESDAY 25th JANUARY.

THE NEW ACS COLLAPSIBLE BUCKET

Lightweight and ideal for keeping those fish wet when taking your trophy pictures, the new ACS water Bucket is collapsible and sports the Stars ’n Stripes logo.

the off-season carper and the logbook

by Luke Wilson

Unfortunately for some people, the fly-carping season leaves for a moment when winter brings in ice and snow that covers the open water. We will all be anxiously waiting for the next moment the hard waters begin to open back up. In my area, most of the water usually freezes over except for a few flowing sections of creek. That means a lot of my spots are un-fishable for carp on the fly rod. Disappointing to say the least, but not unexpected in the Northeast. Every year the winter rolls in, stays for a bit covering most things in a thick blanket of snow, and eventually leaves once convinced. There are ways to fish for the carp year round, and specific characteristics of a location that you must look for to determine if it is fishable all year long for carp. Unfortunately they are hard to come by, so it gives an intense feeling of cabin fever not being able to fish for carp. I fight cabin fever by challenging myself to always prepare for the next chance I get to go out. And when spring rolls back in I'll be ready for some carp. Here's what I do in the off-season.

1). The Logbook

If you haven't recorded your fishing trips, I highly recommend that you start. Make a logbook. It is personally fulfilling to record your trips, and they come with so many added benefits you can use on your next outing. Each time you add to it the more useful they become. Now's the time to begin crafting your logbook. If you do have one already, read through it! You'll learn a lot more about the carp you've been fishing for and I can guarantee it will help you land more than before.

Fishing logbooks can be purchased, but any compact journal or notebook should do the job if you have an idea of what to record. My logbook contains specific and useful categories: location, date and time, gear and flies, and the features of that specific day such as weather conditions. I also try to keep a page for oddball notes to go along with them. What I write on those pages are usually very specific to that spot alone. I describe the cover or structure of that spot. The type of bottom, such as a rocky or mucky bottom is something you can note as well. Most importantly, I log patterns I notice. The patterns I observe as a carp fisherman tend to be the most beneficial information I gather. If I spot carp under one tree multiple times, you bet your bottom dollar that I've noted that and I'm going back to that tree. Another great example I have is knowing what fly works for specific locations. In one section of creek I fish, the bottom is rocky and the current moves a bit faster than the section above, which is mucky and stagnant. I've noticed that in the rocky and fast section a heavier fly that imitates crayfish was my top producer. In the other section, light grub flies outperformed all other flies. These patterns were recorded and have been extremely useful to me. Logbooks are a great way to recap the year, see what flies worked where, what places had the biggest fish, or the most fish. The possibilities are up to you to determine if you want to record them or not. The offseason is a great time for a carper, or any fisherman, to review their logbooks, and determine a plan of action for next year. The logbook has become the holy grail in the offseason, but it is crucial that you keep to it and continue filling and reviewing it out as much as possible. It has become the center of preparation for next year.

2). The Box

The off-season is another great time to go through your fly box, reorganize, and refill. Keeping an organized box is very helpful when you're out. It greatly increases the speed and ability of tossing what you want out to them. You don't want to be digging for that one fly that is secretly not even in there. I've done that. It just wastes time. We want clean, efficient, and speedy when we go to our boxes. Now, how you organize them is up to you, but I try to lump food sources and weights together. That way if I want a heavy crayfish fly, or a light dragonfly nymph I know where to look.

To reorganize you won’t need the logbook. But like I said earlier, the logbook is the holy grail of preparation so use your logbook to help you refill your box. Look in your notes to help refill those fly boxes! What was the fly you caught the most carp on? What kind of food sources have you seen them eat, and do you have those food sources as flies? What patterns have you noticed between the carp and the flies you've been throwing? I know if I go to this one spot, I should stock up and bring these flies. If you know that one fly has been working particularly well, get extras and stock up. It doesn't matter if you tie them or buy them, not much is worse than not having a favorite fly to throw when you're out. Review your logbook and see what it has to say.

3). Scout

With your log book being worked on and reviewed, you should be able to determine what characteristics of a location carp want in your area. Carp are so adaptive, so they may like different things in a different spot. One way I have used my log book in the past to find new waters was oriented on the time of the year and water levels for a certain creek. I’ve caught carp in point A, way upstream, and carp in point C, way downstream. But for some reason I could never get any in between the two points. There should be carp in between these sections if I had caught them above and below as I noted. So I took a trip to try and see what I could land. The middle section was transItional between a slow moving section and a bigger pool where overflow comes in point C. After the trip I found that when water levels were still high, the carp would move between point A and C. On the contrary, when the levels were low, the carp would lose access through the transitional section. Now I know when I should target these fish, and when I should just stick to an upper or lower section. I look at my logbook to help determine my best course of action, what flies to load up on, what kind of water clarity or structure would be present if I had fished the creek before, but not that particular section.

There are a lot of resources to explore new waters other than taking a test run and recording what you find. Luckily for us, finding a new lake or river system to fish is only a click away. Most states now have government produced websites for accessing new waters. You should definitely be using those to your advantage. If I’m trying somewhere completely new, I love to look online.

For the most part, carp are willing to take your fly throughout the entirety of the year. But if you are sick of the cold or just want a head start for next year's carpin’ , use the slower months to prepare. Make a logbook if you haven’t, review yours if you have. Load up and organize your fly box so you're ready to go. Pick a new spot you are just itching to try. And when the time comes, you will be ready to catch some golden bones!

the singles scene part 1

By Don Low

In July 2022 I packed my belongings into a moving POD and took the long drive with my family from Massachusetts to Minnesota. We had discussed relocating closer to my wife’s family and friends for some time (she is from this area of the US), but I have to admit the final day came too quickly and I was going to miss fishing with the good buddies I made in Massachusetts (a fantastic bunch of guys) and catching the scaly carp that reside in the northeast. Mirrors are exceedingly rare in the northern mid-west.

Carp fishing in Minnesota comes with its own set of problems. You can only use a single rod, and officially you are only allowed to use single hook baits. Anything other than a bait attached to the hook is seen as chumming. Any form of pre-baiting will land you trouble with the DNR. They will issue a fine, and if your cited too many times, will revoke your fishing permit. Then there is the general attitude towards carp in this state with many lakes going through carp control programs and suffering from heavy bow-fishing activity.

It’s not all doom and gloom though as carp are in pretty much every lake and river system. A lot of the lakes are huge, which means carp control would be impossible, and the Mississippi river is full of carp, which do not disappoint when it comes to pulling your arm off when hooked. I have had to learn more about how to approach rivers, which are now my favorite type of venue. Which areas are mostly likely to hold fish, what are the deeper and slower moving areas of the river, is the riverbed in a specific spot going to be littered with rocks or other snags, is the disturbance around boat launches good or bad? These are all questions I have had to ask myself as a stare at google maps and Navionics in search of potential areas. Many sections of the river and its tributaries are mostly devoid of shore anglers so you can get away with a little pack bait round the lead. I mean the hook is in the pack bait, so I suppose it is attached to the hook… right… officer?

I have to say that the carp anglers in this area have been extremely welcoming. I was fishing socials within weeks of arriving and made some solid friends very quickly. One session in particular was a real red-letter morning. A newfound fishing buddy Aniq had invited me to a productive section of the main Mississippi. We fished from 6am till 12pm and had multiple carp and buffalo’s (a species I really wanted to tick off the list).

The local restrictions have forced me to adjust the way that I fish. Location is now absolutely paramount. My accuracy (which wasn’t too bad to start with) had to be stepped up. Getting that single baited rig close to the desired spot is not good enough. It must be perfect, so the rig is presented and tangle free, because my chances are already down by 50% while using just one rod. If the drop is not rock hard then I will wind in and recast. It amazes me how many anglers I still see not following the lead down to make sure they know what they are fishing over.

I had found a very small patch of gravel in an otherwise weedy swim. Mostly by luck if I am honest, but I’ll take it. It was only about 40 yards out in a section over 250 yards wide, out so not too difficult to stay accurate. The current in this section was slow so a 4oz lead held bottom no problem. It’s my usual starting point actually.

Where I can get away with using pack bait, I now recast often to try and build the swim. This session was no different. Recasting every 15 minutes. Aniq was the first to start catching with several nice commons. I was starting to think I had made a bad choice to fish the right-hand swim, but over the course of the session the regular casting tactic worked and the fish moved from left to right and into my zone. Once they had arrived, I slowed the recasting to 30 minutes if I hadn’t had a run, but they were come thick and fast.

In addition to working on my river fishing skills and getting used to fishing with zero free offerings (other than pack bait) my hook baits have also changed. I now extensively use heavily pimped hook baits or wrap the hook bait in a generous amount of boilie paste to ensure it is as attractive as possible. For pimping I use Korda Goo, isotonic and white almond being my favorites. I always put a can of corn into my pack bait so the yellow color of the isotonic works well together with is fruits almost pear like flavor. White is another top hook bait color, and the almond really does work well. There seems to be a distinct lack of readymade shelf life paste available through the usual online tackle sites and may be this is something the ACS guys might want to look into. I have taken to making my own by saving a little paste when rolling custom hook baits. This works very well. An alternative is putting a bag of readymade boilies through the food blender until they are ground up really fine and then adding tiger nut flour or vanilla meal as a binder before adding a small amount of water. It kneed the paste for a while to get the right consistency. This works OK but it’s not optimal, as it can still be a little too soft or graining for long cats. I don’t know if any of you have tried making paste from finished boilies? Maybe you can provide a few tips to help the rest of us get it right?

By 10am the bite had slowed considerably, despite there still being a number of fish rolling in the swim. I decided to make the move to plastic corn and a smaller size 6 hook. I often find this can get you a bonus fish or two, and as it turned out it led to my first ever capture of a buffalo. I managed a second about an hour later and I am really looking forward to getting amongst a few more in 2023. In total we landed 20 fish in just 6 hours, the biggest just missing the 20lbs mark.

I am writing this in late-December and winter has well and truly arrived. It has snowed every week since November I think, and unlike Massachusetts it’s not going to melt till late April or early May I suspect. Man alive its cold here! Exploration is one of the things I like most about carp angling. It’s time for me to repay a few favors, find some productive spots of my own, and then share these with the generous friends I have made in the last 6 months. Part 2 of this blog on fishing singles will be written once the ice is gone and will focus on my approach to spring fishing in water that is still very cold. Hopefully it will also feature another red-letter session. In the meantime, tight lines to all those lucky enough to have open water to fish during the winter months.