Asian Carp Redneck Tourney Heat 2

The weather was quite warm and I was concerned about the kids and I getting overheated with wearing the helmets.

 

Also, I had yet to see an actual fish jump from the river, so I thought we'd take our chances, let our ninja skills kick in, and not bother with wearing the helmets.

 

For the second heat, we went out with Matt on his boat, aka The Sasquatch.

 

Mike had some boat issues with his shark and him and Chris teamed up with another guy.

  

 We were a team of eleven people!

 

I was expecting to net a fish or two at least.

 

We had plenty of nets on board! 

 

 

I did see a few fish jump.

 

Most of them jumped about 20 feet from the boat and we didn't have a net with a long enough handle.

 

We drove out to a "hot spot" which was about 18 minutes up stream.

  

It was in a creek near an old power plant.

 

We were soo ready to net us some fish!

   

A couple fish jumped right by the side of the boat!  

  

No one could see the fish until it broke the surface, as the water was like coffee.

 

Even though I was expecting fish to jump, I screamed when one jumped close to me.  It really jumped up high and seemed to come out of nowhere.

 

The two hours passed quickly, and we still didn't have any fish to show for it.

 

Gladys netted a drum that was floating dead on the surface.

  

Troy was rather excited that his sister caught the only fish.

  

Matt played a trick on me and put the fish in his net when I wasn't looking.  Then he splashed the water with his net and pretended he caught another fish. 

 

He had his moment of fame, until I seen the fish was the same dead drum. :)

  

The prizes were three nets, a nice golden net, a nice silver net, and a little minnow net.

  

We didn't think we had a shot at any of the prizes, with just one dead fish.

 

But our team, Illni, came in FIRST and won all three nets with one dead drum!!!

 

How can that be?  Well, our team was the only team to bring in a fish for the second heat!!!   

We may not have truly had much of an opportunity to Redneck Carp Net, but it sure was a fun time anyways.  For me, that's the point of participating in tournaments.  Good Times!  :)

Asian Carp Redneck Touney Heat 1

Howdy fellow Rednecks and the other reader too-- you know who you are!  :)

This weekend was a fun one, I went south to Merom, Indiana to compete in a Asian Carp Redneck Tourney.  I was told it would be similar to this one, a few hours north east, in Bath, Illinois:

In order to prepare for such a tournament, I packed all the usual, life jackets, extra clothes, snacks, cooler full of pop and water.  Plus, for this tourney, I had gathered helmets and extra fishing nets. 

You see, I was told that the flying carp in the Wabash are big.  They have reputations for knocking folk's out, as in out of the boat and out cold.

So, me and the kiddos were planning to protect our brain box and our important parts with helmets and thick padded life vests. 

I had been making plans for the past several weeks to meet a buddy, Mike, and his friends.

The tournament was conducted in two heats.  The first heat, had six registered teams.  Fully Kraeusened is Mike's team, and Illini is the team I was with.

 The day was beautiful weather, a bit on the warm side, but not bad for swimming.

I kept looking out at the water expecting to see jumping fish.  I never did spot any jumping fish from shore.

The only thing jumping on the shore was a toad that Gladdie caught.

I was keeping an eye on the weather and noticed reports of dangerously high water levels on the Wabash. 

The levels didn't seem to be too extremely high, but then again I am a newbie to that area.

I was able to find Mike and his boat right away; it's the only one I've seen with shark teeth.  :)

Gladys found half a fish petrified in the mud-- BLAH!

 The high water levels and faster than usual current were big reasons why the carp were not very jumpy.

We had a little bit of time before we went out on the river, so we went for a tractor ride to check out the Chautauqua Festival.

The tractor ride went up to the top of the hill stopped, went and back down.

The river bluff trail was very beautiful:

And it felt like it was air conditioned.

Did I ever mention my husband, Glenn, does not care for fishing?  Yes, well that is indeed the case.

He tells me it's too barbaric and disgusting for him.  Now please keep in mind, 98% if the time I successfully practice catch and release.  Also, I tend to use my fly rod almost exclusively during open water.  Thus, I generally avoid live bait and anything gross as much as possible.

Soooo, when Glenn told me he was coming with to the Asian Carp Redneck Tourney, I was quite surprised!

 

After picking my jaw up,  I kindly explained that out of all the fishing events I attend, this one may not be for him.

From what I understand, Asian Carp, being a highly invasive species, are not welcomed in our waters.  Thus, when they are caught, they are not to be released.

Also, they tend to bleed rather easy.  Asian Carp are a slimy, stinky fish.
 

In fact, the man that gave us a ride on his air boat, would not even allow Asian Carp inside his vessel.

That should indicate the grossness factor of those fish.

To be grossed out by catching a few gills and bass is nothing in comparison to catching Asian Carp. 

I even showed him the helmets!  :)

I gotta say, Glenn was a good sport for the entire day.

In the video at the beginning of this post, the teams caught 300-500 Asian Carp during the 2-hour heat.  Matt, a seasoned veteran of this sport, and his team brought in 4 Asian Carp, plus a basketball, at the end of the first heat.

Some teams did not bring in any fish.  The team with the most fish from the first heat had a total of eight Asian Carp.

Mike pointed out the fishes filtering system.  Do you see it?

After the first heat ended, we had an hour before we went out for the second heat.  I'll be posting about that soon!  :)