CARP - no snickering please !
 

A friend of mine is from England and he loves to catch carp on light tackle. What are some good places to target on the south shore of MA?:fishin:

Check out David Pickerings Carp Blog
Rhode Island Carp Fishing

Tons of info, spots, tactics, etc

He's got some big catches up to 36 lbs and a couple weeks ago an amazing orange 20 lb koi.
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Also another good one is

Dark Carping- The source for night carp angling in R.I.

Every year I want to target carp during the day or nights where's there's no surf but haven't given it a real shot yet.

Too many other things to do. Wish I had more time.
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small, shallow, mucky ponds with leafy bottoms seem to hold a lot of carp around here. we've caught them to 17lbs on light tackle...it's a blast.

Carp are a blast on fresh water gear. Sliding sinker rig with a few pieces of corn on the hook. Loosen up your drag to next to nothing and wait. They fight like a Bastid.

i've always wanted to try for carp

Snickering?! Those are some badass fish... I've always wanted to make a go at catching them but I don't have room for another hobby in my life! :laughs:

Back in Iowa we used to wade the flood waters and spear fish carp feeding on grass...that was fun.

-spence

If you are not planning on keeping the catch, there are quite a few waterways in eastern MA that hold some bruiser carp.
Sudbury, Concord and Charles rivers all have numerous carp areas.
There are also a few ponds that have them as well (real carp and not released goldfish)
Heard Pond (Wayland) and Spy Pond (Arlington) are 2 that I know have them (as well as other desireable species).

The river carp that I've seen tend to outgrow the pond cousins by quite a large margin.
Nothing is quite as enlightening as seeing a 30+ lb carp bolt when you spook it. Heck, I've even had one ram my kayak while night fishing once.
I haven't targeted them, but I know they are proverbial freight trains when hooked.

Heck, I may have to give them a shot next year!

from what I've seen and heard I agree with this as well. I was carp fishing one day at a local pond and a guy came down with a fly-rod looking for them. said he caught monsters in the Blackstone River. i don;t know how big they get, but I want to say he's seen them to 50+ lbs, actually I think he said 70! But I have no idea how big they get so I don't know if that's true or not. Someone can google it. But i do know in the ponds where i target them, I think the biggest you would catch would probably be around 20lbs.....

A big carp fight isn't all that differant from a big bass fight..... a big one will test your tackle.. and your nerves!

The ones in uk get massive, 70 to 80lbs, the big girls have names and marks to tell them apart, always released and just keep growing.

The RI record is 36lbs, unofficial cause the fish was released.

I'm sure there are ponds /rivers where fish could easily reach 50lbs here.
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I used to fish for them a lot when I was younger and lived in Western MA near the CT River. I used wheaties mashed up and mixed with strawberry soda on a small hook and slip sinker. It was not uncommon to take several over 20 pounds on a given outing. The state record is 44 pounds, landed in the CT River. This one should blow your mind though... WORLDRECORDCARP.COM: New world record common carp from Rainbow Lake 91lb

Yup, 91#'s and he caught it on one of my favorite rods, the SP!

I see them all the time when kayaking the Sudbury River, and when you see carp that would measure anywhere OVER 3 1/2 feet, you start to see where the challenge would play into it.

I've see carp that were close to if not over 4 ft in length and whenthey spooked, they left no doubt that they were a BIG FISH.

Now I regret not targeting these beasts this past summer, as they seemed to out number the bass and pickerel in the small section that I fished.

The added plus was seeing a family of osprey diving/fishing and seeing a young eagle that was either born there or is staking out the area as his "territory".

I tried for carp today because I haven't got a bass in a few days. I was chumming the area pretty hard and a nice guy down the way was fishing a crankbait for bass. he ended up hooking something big that was taking drag and taking him all over the pond before losing it. he was fishing an ultra-lite set-up so I'm not sure if I drew in some carp and he snagged one or if he hooked into a big bass. I got a 22" PIG of a bass the other day in the same area on my medium set-up and it made a strong run at first so who knows. But he said he's caught carp in the lips before on lures. I've never heard of that, but he seemed to know his stuff. he had modified the crankbait in a cool way i'd never seen. Either way it was pretty exciting for about 15 seconds. Now its time to eat :uhuh:

Fun fish to catch. They get real big my way in the CT River. When they get hooked, they get pissed! A much better fight then they present while just swimming around. Look over any bridge that goes into Holyoke, MA in mid June on a sunny day, you'll see some bruisers.

Exactly
 

I will echo what Tim said. I have caught some very nice carp in the Sudbury, Charles, and Concord, as well as Heard Pond. I assume the Heard Pond carp come in through the Sudbury River on the backside. Closer to home for you, I have also seen them in the Indian Head river.

Adding to this, there are some nice carp in the Assabet River, and a very accessible pond in Maynard.