minnows for carp?

[stripermagnet]

Do carp bite minnows?
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[bytebull]

Hi,

I use a weird bait an old man I met at the St. Francis river told me about and have really good results. It's a homemade bait and very cheap to make.

Buy a package of Hormel Hotdogs and a small amount of anise extract.

Cut the dogs into pieces about 1 inch long and put them in a small ziplock bag. Pour in about 2 table spoons of the anise extract and add one teaspoon of garlic salt.

Let them marinade in the bag overnight in a cool area, it doesn't have to be the fridge it can be in a kitchen cabinet or small box. Just somewhere that's not really hot or in direct sunlight. That's the bait now how I use it.

First make a few Leader lines like this:

Make a few 1 foot trailers out of 15lb (or higher up to 25lb) test using a barrel swivel at top and a barrel swivel with interlock snap on the end. Make sure the swivels are rated to handle up to 20lb of torque.

Two ways I use this, Float and bottom:

1.) I use one pole rigged just like catfishing on bottom, but I rig the trailer with a barrel swivel that has interlock snap, I use a #2 treble hook and push the hotdog part down on the hook from the eyelet (before I put it on the intersnap lock). Fish it on bottom just like catfishing.

2.)I use a Medium size float (bobber) and no additional weight on the leader. Place the hotdog on the treble hook by pressing it down the eyelet shaft of the hook before you attach it to the interlock snap on the leader. I start fishing this technique at 1 foot and if I get no bites within 15 minutes I move it down a foot to 2 foot deep, I'll repeat this each 15 minutes until I am at 4 foot deep. If I haven't got a bite after that hour passes I return the depth to 1 foot and repeat the process as long as I an fishing for carp.

There are other baits that anglers use for carp also. Bread balls made of regular white bread from grocer. Corn meal balls made with Molasses. I've even heard of carp anglers using Kellogg's Korn Flakes and Strawberry Koolaid concoctions....

I have good luck using my homemade bait and if you give it a try Good Luck!
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[bytebull]

Oh now to answer your question. Do carp eat minnows?

YES. Carp will eat pretty much any food source available to them with the exception of [#008000]Grass Carp[/#008000], they eat vegitation and are very useful in small ponds under 1 acre at controlling the amount of vegitation growing there.

But anglers that target carp specifically have had much better luck catching only carp on various homemade baits. Reason? Because if you use minnows or other natural live or dead baits you're going to catch all the other fish in that body of water competing for the food.

With Minnows this includes (but not limited to) Bass, Crappie, Catfish, Buffalo, Sucker fish, etc etc. Any fish in the body of water you are fishing most likely will eat minnows.
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[stripermagnet]

Thanks for the extra tip.
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