Sponsor Spotlight - Village Inn on the Lake, Two Rivers

The Village Inn on the Lake has kindly agreed to offer a discount on both their Rooms and their RV Park, for all WI Carp Championship attendees. They have 28 Rooms and 28 RV Sites (all with full hook-ups), and I expect these will fill up fast for the May 30-31 weekend, so please book early to avoid disappointment.

Call the Village Inn on (001 for International callers) 920-794-8818, and please be sure to ask for the "Wisconsin Carp Championships Discount". Here's the link to their website.

Carptown To Host 2009 WI Carp Championship!

The 2009 Wisconsin Carp Championships will be held on May 30 & 31, at the most exciting carp fishing venue in the US; "Carptown, USA"! Also known as the City of Two Rivers, WI, this sleepy Lake Michigan shoreline community has been known as "Carptown" for more years than anyone there cares to remember; but now they are dusting off the name and wearing it with pride, as the rising sport of catch & release Carp Fishing comes to their town.

Two Rivers really does sit on... two rivers; with the West Twin and the East Twin rivers running through the center of town. The rivers provide easy marina access into the vastness of Lake Michigan, allowing a thriving charter industry to store their Salmon, Lake Trout and Brown Trout record-catching boats snugly away from the storms that occasionally blow across this inland sea.

But there's one fish that runs up these rivers every April, May and June that the charter skippers don't fish for, but see every year... totally wild, monster-sized Carp. That's the big draw for the 2009 WI Carp Championships; the chance to tangle with a WI-record sized fish (current record is 57lb 2oz), or catch enough fish to break the championship record; that's currently over 483lb. Will you be that lucky angler? With thousands of dollars in cash prizes up for grabs, what do you have to lose?

I am quietly confident of both the quantity and quality of the Carp that the 100 anglers will be fishing for. Two Rivers is the true "Carptown" in the US; it's carp soup here in late spring. Last year three of us fished in the Two Rivers area and caught more than twenty 20 pounders in a single day. There are also a lot of 30+ pound fish in the mix; I'd consider Two Rivers as the best choice for someone wanting to catch a 40 or 50 pound fish in May.

Interested? Excited by the prospect of being well paid to fish for big, hard-fighting carp? Check out the 2009 WI Carp Championship Entry Form and Rules at: http://acsdatacenter.com/index.php?act=ST&f=56&t=1169&st=0#entry9360

Any questions? Please reply to this blog post and I'll do my best to get you all the answers you need to be successful... and catch the big one!

Tiger and Panther Feeders

Hi Folks,

I've been asked to write a short piece about fishing the Tiger and Panther Feeders; so here's the skinny on how to get the best out of them. But first, a shameless plug!

Both Tiger and Panther Feeders retail at $4 apiece, including postage & packing; please ask me if you want a dozen or more, as bulk order discounts are always given! The feeders are the result of two years design and trial, with several anglers fishing a wide variety of venues; here's a few of the highlights:

1. I just had my best season ever in terms of the percentage of 20 pound plus fish to total carp caught. I ended up with a Twenty Plus percentage of 23%... and I had over 500 fish again this year! During that time, I lost, trashed or otherwise demolished just 11 feeders, all in the rocks on rivers... these puppies are TOUGH!

2. Larry Kirchner caught his personal best carp on his first Tiger Feeder session... nuff said.

3. Eric and I fished Tiger and Panther feeders exclusively on our first ever Hoosier Carp Tournament, on the St. Joe River in Elkhart, IN. I had the third biggest fish, and Eric was unlucky to lose a fish that would probably have won the big fish of the year award, and would definitely have won the tournament... all this on a day when only 6 carp were caught.

The feeders come in three standard weights; light at 1.7oz (good for method mixes and pay-laking), medium at 2.9oz (all-rounder, for heavy method mixes, lake and river fishing), and heavy at 5.8oz (deep, fast-flowing rivers).


So, what's the best way to fish them? At close to medium range (0 - 75 yards), I recommend a standard Safety Lead Clip & Tail Rubber rig (Tiger Feeder in the pic), as this ensures a great bolt effect with a standard hair-rig, using both soft and stiff links.

If you are going for distance (75 yards+), I prefer to set up the Helicopter rig (Panther Feeder in the pic), as this is totally tangle-free and allows you to really punch the feeder out. It's also creates a fairly good bolt effect, whichever direction the carp moves after it takes your bait!

For either basic rig, you can fill the feeder in a variety of ways. If you want to mix up a specialist groundbait, or one of your own secret concoctions, you can fill the feeder completely, or plug one end of the feeder with groundbait, fill the remainder of the feeder with some samples of your hookbait, then plug the open end. This works really well for bigger, hungry fish, here's a video of me showing this method of fishing. And here's a link to a great groundbait that works really well with the Tiger and Panther Feeders, this stuff is awesome!

You can also fish either Feeder "method style"; although I recommend a twist on the usual procedure! I make up two mixes, one very dry and highly flavored mix; this goes inside the feeder, with a wet, sticky mix squeezed over the top and outside of the feeder, make sure you have plenty covering the lead "ears" of the feeder on either side!

The method mix is most effective in relatively shallow water; once you are fishing more than about 8-12 feet deep, it's probably best to go to a stickier groundbait mix, inside the feeder. Otherwise you will either lose too much method mix on the way down, or if you mix it really hard, you'll be playing fish with lumps of method still attached to the feeder... not good for collecting fish in one place! An alternative, and something that works well even in shallow water, is to use a pay-laker style pack-bait; grits mixes are especially popular in the springtime.

Finally, both feeders are very effective when used with a PVA bag; simply stick a bag inside a dry feeder, fill it with your chosen dry ingredients and attractors, seal the bag and cast it out! The Safety Clips really come into their own here, as you can make up a batch of PVA bags in dry feeders, and just swap feeders each cast. Of course, you will probably want to have about a dozen feeder if fishing three rods... so you can have three feeders out in the water, and three drying off, while you are re-bagging the other six! Here's a link for PVA bags, Safety Clips and Helicopter Rig bits; here's another link for PVA bags, and Safety Clips.

If you have any other questions, don't be afraid to ask! I'll be publishing more information on Tiger and Panther Feeders in the near future, including links to shops that stock them. I'm also working on a variety of new colors and sizes of Feeder... so if you just have to have a Camouflaged Feeder that weighs 6 ounces, won't bounce in the flow of a fast-running river AND is snag resistant, then let me know and I'll be happy to give you a cost-effective quote!