Canadian summer carp fishing report

Carp have finally finished spawning, managed to get my first couple groups of the summer out for some carp fishing. The extreme heat we have been experiencing, along with the lack of any wind or clouds, made for very tough carp fishing conditions. The water is close to the temperature of a bathtub for the top 5 feet of depth or so, only starts getting slightly cooler about 6 or 7 feet down, and not by much. Probably the first time I can remember seeing my car's thermostat reach the 40 C mark.

Despite the high heat, we did manage to hook some carp, and thankfully, my the kids and adults I fished with did a great job, landing a perfect 8 of 8 carp over a couple days of fishing.

Have a pike trip planned for next week, hope to have some more carp fishing pics and updates in the latter half of July.

July 19th update:

Did some more carp fishing with a childhood friend of mine that came to visit from the USA for a few days. Another sickeningly hot day without wind, had the bite slower than ever for this time of year, he and the kids managed to land 3 of 4 carp on our day trip.

He and I hit another spot the following evening for a last few hours of carp fishing before he returned home. More channel cats than carp came to play, landed 3 cats and one more carp.

July 20th update:

Another scorchingly hot and windless day, didn't have high hopes from my group of 4 visiting from Mexico city. Carp fishing was predictably slow, but Miguel, Jose, Gilberto and Jesus all managed to land their first carps

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August 19th update:

After 4 weeks of no carp fishing due mainly to a lot of travel, I finally made it out to chase some carp with my kids, as they are off both school and camp as well.

Got a pretty late start for a Sunday at 10:15 am, luckily, we had the spot to ourselves for the first few hours. Water level was extremely low, and temperature had cooled off slightly since mid summer. Bite was predictably sporadic, but when the carp turned on to feed, we hooked up rather quickly.

Eli, Chaya, Levi and Zev (with a but of help) went a perfect 7 out of 7 carp landed.

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August 20th update:

Went out for a short solo evening outing after dark. Bite turned on after I switched to using a Fireball boilie, hooked and landed my biggest carp of this season so far, a fat 31 lbs female.

Nice to finally get to fight a big carp again, between the guiding and my family outings, I rarely get to do so any more.

Followed up shortly after by another carp in the upper teens, and a small 5 lb channel catfish as well, all on the fireball boilies.

August 23rd update:

Back at it again, this time with my childhood friend Yohann and his 3 boys who were visiting from New York. I took a couple of my boys along as well, so we had quite the crowd.

His older son Elisha was up for the first carp, for some odd reason, he didn't seem to interested and let his younger brother David take the rod. BIG mistake. After a good battle, David landed this gorgeous mirror carp, biggest one I've seen come from that spot.

They are extremely rare in the are of the St Lawrence that we were fishing, maybe 1 out of 250 carp is a mirror carp, the rest are mainly common carp with a few muddlers. He definitely hit the jackpot with his first carp ever.

His younger brother Josh landed a small channel cat while we were unhooking the big mirror carp.

Elisha finally took the rod and landed his first carp:

My son Eli then proceed to land another channel cat:

Followed by another carp landed by my 6 year old Zev, with a lot of help from dad, including handlining the last 40 feet or so of line, as the carp had run my sinker up the line past the shock leader.

Yohann then landed the next carp:

After losing some more carp snagged in deep rock piles, David landed his first common carp, which also turned out to be the last one of the day:

All in all, another great day on the bank, with 5 of 9 carp landed, and 2 channel catfish, everyone got in on some action.

August 25th update:

With Yohann still in town, he and I headed out for one last outing before he headed home. This time, we chose to avoid the weekend crowds and fish after dark, just the 2 of us with the kids at home.

Outing was extremely relaxing, as the weather was calm, and the hordes of summer bugs seem to have died down.

Carp bite was very good on sweet dream boilies, we landed 3 of 3 carp and another channel catfish in a few hours of fishing.

September 2 update:

Took Gary, Donna, Riley and Tyson out for their first attempt at carp fishing to start off September. With moderate winds, cloud and rain in the forecast, I was hoping to finally get some of my clients onto a good, consistent bite. Most of my clients over the past couple months all ended up booking dog days that were extremely hot, sunny and windless, about the worst possible combination for carp fishing in the summer, so this one had me feeling that I'd be a lot busier throughout the outing.

We ended up with a solid 6 hours period of consistent action, with the family landing 11 of 15 carp, and one channel catfish as well. Had one double header on, but one of the carp got away to to a rare line cut.
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All in all, they were thrilled with the outing, and with the quality of fishing that a decent day of carp fishing can turn out to be. Kids all broke their personal records by far, and should have a lifetime of good memories to remember. Hope to get out for a few more September outings before the start of fall.