In a Summer Slowdown; 900th Carp of the Year Landed

This good looking common is my 900th carp of the year.
It looks like a thousand fish season will be a sure bet in 2017.

This past week has probably been the slowest week of the summer for me.  The only highlight was that I landed my 900th carp of the year today, setting up what is a sure bet to reach 1,000 fish this year.
I have been out every day in the last week, fishing mostly in the mornings.  I had one blank and got 2 to 6 fish all the other days. Today I was looking at a blank and was about to pack up and leave when I suddenly landed 3 carp in 15 minutes, but that was it.  This is all way off compared to what I had been doing. Yes, I'm in a summer slowdown.
There's a lot of reasons why we hit this slowdown every year about this time.  The water is at its warmest point of the year, the water is low and river flows are slow, pests are at a peak, and the weed is awful this year.  I have really been bothered by pests this week.  I've landed many brown and yellow bullhead (horned pout) and snapping turtles continue to grab my plastics.  I've abandoned all the real bait in favor of plastics to try and cut down on pests. Many of my favorite spots to fish are also unfishable due to low water and weed growth, a bad combination.  All that rain and spring run-off has caused big time weed to form in some places.
So, I'm looking forward to cooler weather, cooler nights in the fifties and some rain.  Whenever all that happens will determine when the carp fishing picks up.