Carp fishing in Oregon

T
topbloke
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Carp fishing in Oregon is great fun! I much prefer fishing for them here than in England. The carp over there are heavily pressured and being fished for constantly. When you get a fish out you can normally see the hook damage around it's mouth where it's been caught many times before. The fishing venues over there generally have the carp brought in from dedicated fish farms so everyone knows exactly what's in that particular water. That alone takes a lot of the fun out of it for me. It's a bit like a hunter going to the local zoo and hunting!

Danny Fairbrass, a fishing equipment producer and TV fishing celebrity has recently bought a 30+ acre lake in France. He's taking out all the smaller carp and other species of fish. Is that real fishing?

I like the mystery of not knowing what I'm going to catch next, which I definitely get when fishing Oregon waters.

:)
 
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My friends went to Sauvie Island today and caught 10 carp. 9 common and one mirror. All in 4 hours. I dident go because I was busy but im probally going next weekend if im not sick. :)

Tight lines. And good fishing. :cool:
 
Carp fishing

I'm from Slovakia and I grew up Carp fishing. Fried Carp is national xmas dish in Slovakia and I used to fish for them all the time. Now to be honest salmon/steelhead fishing is much more fun but I'd like to get to some carp over here. I know what they bite and how to catch them I just don't know where to go over here. It'd be fun to hook few.
 
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I usually carp fish a couple of times a year. They're usually biting when the bass aren't on those lazy summer days. I fish for them in a couple of ponds in Eugene that aren't weedy which is a huge plus. Another bonus is they are all big. With the smallest at 29" and my biggest yet was a 33"er. If I were to target them in a lake, Fern Ridge would be the one. I have seen 3 footers in there swimming around the dock at Richardson's Park. So if you are ever down this way and are looking to get into some carp. Fern Ridge has 9000 acres of area to fish!
 
When I'm fishing, I usually target carp because it's the strongest fish
out here (Netherlands). I did know that there were carp in the great lakes and the St. Laurence river. I've fished the St Laurence river 2 years ago during a vacation in Canada. I've caught some nice fish then.
I was surprised to read on this forum that there are also carp in the west.
It's nice to read you also enjoy catching them!
 
The carp on the picture is my PB (32lb).
Do the carp in Oregon also get this big or are they smaller?
I was planning to try to catch a big salmon or sturgeon in Oregon,
if there are carp as big or bigger as this one I think i will target carp as well:D.
Are carp wide spread in Oregon, or are there only a small number of places where they can be caught?
 
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Ive seen some of 30-40lb fish caught at snake river. Best carp fishing in Oregon IMO.
 
Anton said:
The carp on the picture is my PB (32lb).
Do the carp in Oregon also get this big or are they smaller?
I was planning to try to catch a big salmon or sturgeon in Oregon,
if there are carp as big or bigger as this one I think i will target carp as well:D.
Are carp wide spread in Oregon, or are there only a small number of places where they can be caught?
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The biggest I've seen around this area was around twenty pounds, but that was in a pond. Who knows how big they are in some of the lakes and rivers around here. Not too many people target carp here so it's hard telling. I live in the Eugene area which is at about the mid western part of the state. TB lives up in the north western part of the state. There's a guy that lives in the north eastern part of the state that has a thread on fly fishing for carp. I'd bet money they are in the rest of the state too.
 
The carp in the Portland area of Oregon are not really targeted by many people. There's a fly fisherman who targets them called John Montana and he's caught them up to 30lbs. A guy called Scott Osmand from the Carp Anglers group came over to Oregon for a couple of weeks and his best was 25 pounds.

I'm sure the carp in this neck of the woods reach 40lbs plus. :)
 
Think of it this way, If theres a lot of carp in a lake. Then they would most commonly be small because they dont get a lot of food.
And say the same lake has very few carp, Those carp would be very big because each one gets more food.
 
This is true. I know in the Long Tom below Fern Ridge there's tons of carp. I used to fish there when I was a kid and catch them for hours but they were all small with an average fish at about 18 to 20 inches.
 
Usually the case with all fish....


The Carp in Oregon are definetely not targeted often, so they don't always readily accept certain baits. One thing I learned in the past few months is that the smaller the body of water, the more picky they are, if its a larger body of water like the Willamette River, then they will accept a larger variety of food, the reason for this in my view is that a smaller body of water like a pond has less food sources, and they are only used to feeding on few things such as crayfish, bugs, larvaes, snails, and vegetation, whereas a river or bigger body of water has a wider variety of food, and they seem more willing to give other things a try because some of the food they come across can be pretty random.

Sometimes it can be pretty easy to tell if you got a school of carp feeding around you, I mainly look for bubbles, but if your using a standard slide sinker rig, and you get a monster bite or pull, its usually because they are trying to grab and go because they don't want another carp to get it, they start competing because all they're worried about is getting the most.

Size depends on a little more than amount of food and numbers of carp, to find monster carp, you would have to have a close to perfect environment, you need the right balance of food sources, not just amount but variety. The depth of the lake or body of water matters also, it should be a lake with drop offs and I would say a max depth of 25-30ft and maybe an average of 10-15ft. Water quality is another factor, and maybe a little to do with elevation. Think of monster Rainbows, Klamath Lake is key environment, or the Trout in Paulina.
 
Great to see you havent left Drew. :)

He has a good point. Corn and worms are my favorite baits for carp in smaller lakes.
 
So far my biggest carp have come from small lakes and ponds. I want to try Clackamas lake because I've heard there's some big carp in there.

Just ordered a ton of bait from an online bait store. Lot's of different kinds of bollies, flavored sweetcorn, pellets etc.

I can't wait until the weather improves a bit so I can try it all out. :)
 
Growing up here in western Oregon...we were taught that carp is a "trash fish" and therefore is too be despised. When we'd fish for other species and caught a carp instead, we'd toss them on the bank and let 'em rot. And we were taught that they are bony and taste terrible.

They are also an invasive species as near as I can tell. For example, they completely choked out the largemouth bass, from my favorite hole on the Long Tom river. There are no more bass at all, in that stretch of river, because of the carp. And there is some sort of similar carp problem in Lincoln's City's Devils Lake too.

So, my apologies to those who enjoy this fishery, but I just can't fathom sport fishing for those things. But, they are very easy to catch. And yes, Fern Ridge Reservior (west of Eugene) has BIG ones in it!

Good luck to those who enjoy this fishery...there are plenty of them. I would be HAPPY to see them all caught OUT of the Long Tom River, so I can have my bass spot return to it's former fishing glory. :cool:

P.S. A LOT of them get trapped in receding spring time pools in Albany's Bryant Park (along with squaw fish, and probably other species too). This phenomenon may happen in other parks along the Willamette too. So, that's worth a try in the Spring as high winter level water begins to recede.
 
topbloke said:
So far my biggest carp have come from small lakes and ponds.
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But..... Just how many bigger Lakes and Rivers have you fished for Carp, and how many of them produced. Ponds and Small lakes can hold decent Carp, when I say monster Carp I'm talking 30lb+, when I'm talkin small Carp, I'm sayin 10lbs and under, an average Carp to me is about 16lbs, and thats probably because I fish the Willamette. But I have a Gravel Pit (Walling) close to my house that is not big at all, almost small enough to skip a rock across (not quite lol), and this pond gets to atleast 50-60 feet I would estimate, and my 30lber was caught out of there.
 
Redmire pool in England is a 3 acre pond which has carp to over 50lbs, so there is no doubt that large fish can live in small ponds.

I haven't done as much river fishing for carp as I have pond/lake fishing simply because I've been content fishing local spots which are only a short drive from my home.

Hopefully this year I'll get to give the larger waters a go and have some success.

That's what I love about carp fishing here. You just don''t know what's out there like in England.
 
Drew9870 said:
But..... Just how many bigger Lakes and Rivers have you fished for Carp, and how many of them produced. Ponds and Small lakes can hold decent Carp, when I say monster Carp I'm talking 30lb+, when I'm talkin small Carp, I'm sayin 10lbs and under, an average Carp to me is about 16lbs, and thats probably because I fish the Willamette. But I have a Gravel Pit (Walling) close to my house that is not big at all, almost small enough to skip a rock across (not quite lol), and this pond gets to atleast 50-60 feet I would estimate, and my 30lber was caught out of there.
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I like to take my kids carp fishing up here in Portland sometimes (usually at Mary S Young park on the Willamette), but most of the carp we catch are in the 5lb range. Also, we usually catch more suckers than carp. Since I always have the kids with me and they have limited patience I do not have a lot of time to explore - A 5lber in the hand is worth a 10lber in the bush :) Thus I am curious as to the type of water you are fishing. I usually try to fish areas with little to no current. Do you look for a certain bottom type? I have been mostly fishing mud or sandy bottomed areas. This makes sense to me but perhaps I am wrong about that. From your post I see you are in Salem so I am not asking for anything specific but rather general information. Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks,

jts
 
Your doing everything right, But carp can tolerate current. Ive caught them drift fishing. Try fishing at Kelly point park on the sandy beach (colombia or willamette). Usually threes big carp there.
 
Thanks TB! I will give that a try this year.
 
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