What are the common fishing methods for grass carp? This article gives you a detailed introduction

Grass carp belongs to the order Cypriniformes, family Cyprinidae, subfamily Leuciscinae, genus Ctenopharyngodon. It inhabits rivers and lakes in plains areas, generally preferring the middle and lower layers of the water and nearshore areas with abundant aquatic plants. It is lively by nature, swims swiftly, and often forages in groups. There are many ways to fish for grass carp. Besides the commonly used bottom-fishing methods, below the editor lists several methods specifically for catching grass carp!

Grass carp bottom-nest fishing method

In most cases, when setting a bottom nest for grass carp, you need to put down a large nest. If the fish are especially dense and numerous, you can put down a large nest of five jin or ten jin, and add to or replenish the nest when necessary. When setting a bottom nest, you should consider using both soft and hard baits, that is, use soft bait to feed and hard bait to maintain the nest. Soft bait should mainly be oil bran, wheat bran, etc., mixed with an appropriate amount of powdered bait such as flour, while hard bait can be bran cake pieces, soybean cake pieces, pellet feed and the like. The bait used for fishing grass carp differs between spring and autumn and summer. When the temperature in spring and autumn is below 20°C, the digestive capacity of grass carp is not very strong, so soft bait should be the main choice. For example, when fishing grass carp in late autumn, you should choose cooked bait or semi-cooked bait, because grass carp about to seal their mouths fear indigestion most. They will stay away from raw bait and hard bait, or even ignore them completely. Above 30°C, grass carp have a stronger digestive capacity, and using hard baits such as bran cake pellets and pellet feed as bait will not cause any problems. Summer grass carp fear diarrhea most, so summer bait must be good, fresh and clean.

When setting a bottom nest for grass carp, you should identify the fish bubbles before putting down the nest. Grass carp bubbles are large and easy to recognize, even on windy days. The water depth at the nest site for grass carp should be about 1.5 m to 2 m, and the distance from the shore should be no less than 5 m. If the water is too shallow and too close, it is not good for hooking and playing the fish. The float signals when grass carp bites are mostly the float dipping and shaking before sinking. Grass carp have the habit of eating while moving, so the float signals are not hard to recognize.

Grass carp grass-nest fishing method

Fishing grass carp with a grass nest is direct fishing, true fishing, and the method most capable of catching grass carp. There are two ways to make a grass nest: one is to make a sunken bottom grass nest, and the other is to make a floating surface grass nest. Making a sunken bottom grass nest is bundled placement: take cut green grass about half a meter long, tie it into bundles with rope, and the bigger the bundle the better. Attach a stone or brick, throw it forcefully and sink it to the bottom. The water depth is required to be more than two meters. Making a floating surface grass nest is scattered placement, mainly used for fishing in flowing water. Cut the green grass into small sections of about 50 mm, put them into a bag and pound them, then knead them soft with your hands. When setting the nest, each time grab 5 to 10 sections of grass and throw them onto the water surface of the flowing water, throwing once about every 2 m, until fish are attracted to the nest. After the fish come to the nest, you still need to keep throwing grass to maintain the nest.

The methods for fishing a bottom grass nest and a floating grass nest are different. Fishing bottom grass is mainly done with a hand rod, while fishing floating grass is mainly done with a sea rod. The bait for fishing bottom grass is mainly green grass tips, and you can also use grain sprouts, tender leaves, pumpkin flowers and the like. The bait for fishing floating grass is mainly green grass tips. When using green grass tips as bait, you can thread them directly onto the hook, or tie them into small bundles with rubber band line, generally bundling 6 to 10 grass tips together. When using a hand rod to fish a sunken bottom grass nest, the bait cannot sink to the bottom, but should be in front of, behind, to the left, to the right of, or above the grass nest. Whether grass carp have come to the nest is easy to recognize. The nest site of sunken grass constantly has broken grass fragments floating out to the surface, indicating there are fish at the nest and you can cast. The more grass fragments float out, the more fish are at the nest.

When fishing for surface grass carp in flowing water, use a sea rod of more than 2 m, and a float; the line and lead sinker can be mounted below the float tip, and the leader from the hook tail to the sinker bottom is about 300 mm. The bait (mainly a bundle of grass tips) is put in from the grass-throwing point and travels along with the nest grass point. When a fish bites, you must wait until the float sinks below the water surface before lifting the rod to strike the fish. The strike should be strong and heavy.

Grass carp suspended fishing method

The suspended fishing method we discuss here refers to bait-jigging without setting a nest. It can be done with a hand rod or a sea rod, mainly using a single hook to fish for grass carp. The suspended fishing method with a hand rod has more advantages than with a sea rod for grass carp. The sinker used in hand-rod fishing is lighter than that used in sea-rod fishing, and when gathering and casting the hook bait, it can reduce the degree of startling the fish. The suspended fishing method mostly uses long rods of 6 m, 7 m or more, giving a large radius when lifting the rod to hook fish and good elasticity, which can increase the hooking rate. When fishing grass carp with the suspended fishing method, you should fish with the wind or with a side wind.

Grass carp long-rod long-line bottom fishing method

The long-rod long-line bottom fishing method is mainly used to catch large grass carp (it can also catch large black carp). If the fish school in the water is relatively dense, usually no nest is set, and it mainly relies on bait to lure and fish. Use a 6 m or 7 m ISO rod or hand rod, equipped with a gear reel that pays out and retrieves line flexibly, wound with over a hundred meters of long line, with the main line tied directly to a large hook. The leader length from the hook tail to the sinker is 80-120 mm, and the sinker weight is about 2-5 grams, which can be increased for long casts. Mainly use large bran cake pellets of 10×20 mm or more, and large pellets with a diameter of 10 mm and a length of 20 mm or more as bait (in late autumn, strongly sticky cooked flour can be used as bait). This is a typical slow and dull fishing method, and it is also a fishing method relatively suitable for catching large grass carp.

Grass carp string-hook fishing method

Using a string hook to keep bottom grass carp can fish still water and can also fish flowing water. For still water, you can use hard bait, soft bait, insect bait, etc. For flowing water, mainly grass bait is used. Sometimes grass carp cannot be caught with a string hook, which is mostly related to the sinker being too light and the main line not being tightened. The hook bait of a bomb hook is outside the sinker and is open; when a fish bites, it first pulls the sinker and then takes the line, and even if the main line is slightly slack, it will not affect hooking the fish.

Grass carp bomb-hook fishing method

Previously, the bomb hook had only one fishing method, namely the soft-bait fishing method. Now the bomb hook has one more fishing method, namely the hard-bait fishing method, which can likewise catch grass carp. However, the soft-bait fishing method and the hard-bait fishing method are still somewhat different. The soft-bait fishing method can fish by nest luring, while the hard-bait fishing method cannot do this. When using a bomb hook with hard bait to fish grass carp, it will not scatter the fish school. No matter where the large bran cake pellets and large pellet feed hung on the hook are cast, they cannot form a nest, nor can they leave behind more bait. Adopting the hard-bait jigging method makes the bomb-hook fishing method freer and more convenient. It is worth noting that when using hard bait to fish grass carp, do not hide the hook point too tightly. You must prevent the hard bait from covering the hook point so that it cannot pierce the fish mouth, causing an empty hook.