Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A Crappy Month

In past years, July was a very good month of carp fishing here in RI. Last year when the weather was rainy and cool, I caught over 150 carp in just the month of July. Not so this year. I will be lucky to log in 35 fish this month and I am putting in the same amount of effort in the same spots as last year. So, what's the problem?
I believe the problem started in early spring when we had the severe flooding. That moved a lot of nutrients into the water and also displaced a lot of fish, especially in our rivers. The oppressively warm weather in July has boosted freshwater temperatures into the eighties in some spots, a major turn off to feeding. In addition, the water is very low, near drought conditions in the Blackstone River. Also, the water is very discolored in many spots due to algae growth ( caused by heat and nutrients from flooding). It all adds up to very poor carp fishing in the month of July.
My limited success has come from fishing in late evening, just before and after dark. That time seems to produce some fish if you can stand the big numbers of mosquitoes around. A hot night for me these days is two fish, extremely poor for this time of year.

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