EDITORS NOTE: The fishing season opens in southern Saskatchewan tomorrow May 5th. Hear what Last Mountain Guide Rob Schulz has to say about the early season fishing tomorrow on The Complete Angler podcast. Meantime check out this great story on the carp of Last Mountain by Rob!
LAST MOUNTAIN LAKE IS MUCH MORE THAN WALLEYE
It’s become one of the best-known trophy walleye fisheries in North America. People might be surprised, however, to know this natural glacier lake also has incredible carp fishing.
Located just north of Regina, in south central Saskatchewan, this lake is 93 kilometres long, varies from 2 to 3 kilometres wide and has depths up to 30 meters. Last Mountain’s rocky shore lines, rocky points, shallow bays and shallow ends of the lake are all great natural spawning grounds for a variety of fish.
What really makes it special are the shallow bays at both the south and north ends of the lake. These hold a ton of reeds along with weed growth that allow for successful carp spawning habitat.
Carp are not natural to Last Mountain Lake. They were brought into the United States in the 1800s to help feed the people building the rail system. Carp were dumped into small ponds along the rails. Eventually they found their way into the northern U.S. river systems, then continued onward north, into the rivers and lakes in southern Canada, including Last Mountain Lake.
THE RIGHT HABITAT MEANS BIG CARP
With the right habitat in the lake, along with abundant food sources, these carp grow to mammoth proportions. There are monster fish in this last, surpassing the forty-pound mark! These giant carp, in my opinion, are by far the strongest fighting fish Last Mountain has to offer.
INCREDIBLE SPORT FISH
Once considered a trash fish, anglers in this part of the world are discovering what an incredible sport fish they truly are. We have been targeting and guiding for carp since 1995. This exposure has played a major role in developing the sport of carp fishing in Saskatchewan. Our guests have enjoyed their guided carp fishing experience, with most of them catching the biggest and strongest fighting fish of their life. Many continue to fish for them after discovering what a blast they are to catch.
To help promote the carp fishing on Last Mountain we hosted carp Fishing Tournaments and were guests on the television fishing shows The Complete Angler, The In-Fisherman and Fishing Saskatchewan.
THE BIRTH OF A FISHERY
In 1995 we hosted a group of Professional carp fisherman from England as part of a Saskatchewan Tourism initiative. I knew where to find the carp on Last Mountain Lake and they knew how to catch them. This was a perfect combination as we successfully caught good numbers of carp in the 20 to 35 pound range. After catching just a few of these carp myself, I totally bought in ! I could not believe the incredible power of these fish and quickly became my favourite species to fish.
INEXPENSIVE PROPOSITION
Carp fishing can be very simple and inexpensive. You can fish from shore and all you need is a spinning rod and reel combo with lots of line, bell weights and J hooks with some corn for bait. Find a spot along the shore looking to spot carp on the move. When you do, just cast out and wait for a bite. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
The style of carp fishing we use is more sophisticated with specialized equipment developed in Europe. We fish from shore also but use specially designed 12 foot rods.
These rods cast extremely far distances, a key when the fish are a bit scattered. The long rods also offer more control over a giant carp. For reels we use are large capacity bait runner reels. They hold about 200 yards of 12 pound test mono line. You can disengage the gears so a fish can pick up your bait and run with it without feeling resistance. We use a 2 ounce bell weight on a quick change clevis that will slide freely up the line when a fish picks up and runs with the bait.
ELECTRONIC BITE INDICATORS KEY
We set our rods on a rod holder pushed into the ground with an electronic bite indicator on top that the line sits in. Once a fish picks up the bait and the line moves through the indicator an electronic chirp signals letting us know there is a fish on. We quickly pick up the rod and once you crank the reel the gears re-engage and the fight is on.
The hook rig we use is called a Hair Rig. It consists of a 16” piece of braided line with a swivel tied to one end that hooks to the main line. On the other end of the rig is a #2 Salmon Egg hook tied on with a 1½” piece of line continuing past the hook with a small loop on the end. On this short tag of line which we call the “Hair” is where we put the bait on rather than on the hook. The “Hair” holds much more bait then the hook and with just bait on the Hair the hook has a much higher hook-up percentage. To get the bait onto the Hair the bait is put onto a special bait needle. The bait needle hooks onto the loop on the end of the Hair and then we pull the bait off the needle onto the Hair. Put a small piece of grass through the loop to hold the bait on the Hair.
CORN IS THE BAIT OF CHOICE
Our most common bait is boiled whole kernel field corn. We also use it to pre-bait the area we plan on fishing. To increase the effectiveness of this bait on the Hair Rig, we re-boil a small amount of corn in a sugar water solution or sweet flavoured syrup like strawberry or chocolate. Carp seem to prefer sweet baits. We also use commercially manufactured dough balls, which are called “Boilies”. They are available in a number of sweet flavours and available in both sinking and floating formulas.
FINE TUNING YOUR HAIR RIG
We sometimes must fine tune our rig, so the carp have an easier time finding the bait.
Called “Popping Up”, this technique suspends your bait on the Hair Rig slightly off the bottom, which makes it easier for a carp to find and eat. This is achieved by putting a small ¼” square piece of floating foam or cork on the Hair with the corn and then pinch a small spit shot weight 1” below the Hair Rig.
This will allow the bait to suspend slightly off the bottom. You can play with the distance between the split shot and the Hair Rig to change the amount it suspends off bottom.
PRE BAITING AN AREA IS THE KEY!
The most important step to successfully catching numbers of carp is a consistent baiting program. Once you find an area where you have seen carp, which is almost anywhere on Last Mountain, pre-bait this area multiple times prior to you fishing this spot. The more you bait an area the more carp will stay in this area and can result in big numbers. We consistently catch 15 to 25 carp in a day and catches up to 40 have been produced.
Carp fishing is becoming a much more popular species to fish and is an untapped resource in most of our southern prairie waters. If you are looking for a new challenge and like catching giant powerful fish, give carp fishing a try. You will be hooked once you have landed your first carp!