It was a a beautiful morning at a little after 6 when Harley IV and I left the waterfront on Lake Ferguson. We noticed a few dead Asian carp floating on the lake as we plied North. Quickly the dead carp became much more plentiful to the point of making you pay attention to driving the boat to keep from hitting one. The farther North we went the numbers rose to the thousands. The dead ones were lined up on the bank where the falling water had left them. When the water heats the carp become susceptible to a virus and have a die off. Most we saw were in the 15 to 18 inch range. I wish all the carp would die but I wonder what bad things that many dead fish would do to the water quality, not to mention the smell. Seeing that many dead fish put us out of the mood for fishing but we pressed on.

There were so many dead fish in the main lake we thought perhaps there would be a better spot in the upper lake. It was somewhat better as far as the dead fish were concerned but the fish were not just jumping in the boat. We were able to fish in the shade there because the sun had not come up enough to shine over the trees. We finally caught one on a DT-6 and HMIV was Johnny on the spot with the camera and caught it in the act.

You can see it was a giant. A little while later the sun came over the trees and it began to heat up so we put on the sun protection.

You can see how calm the lake was at this point. Shortly after this photo we beat it for the waterfront and were driving home at 10.

This is a photo supplied by Tom by way of Jackson of the West ramp at Lake Monticello. The lake is being DRAINED because of problems with the dam that were unable to be fixed when they lowered the lake about a year ago. It’s sad because it was such a great spot to catch a big fish. In 2006 I caught 3 over 8, a 9 1/2 and no telling how many in the 7’s there. That was before I began to keep records. I recorded in my memory the 8’s and 9’s but there were too many 7’s. Caught the 9 on a 1/4 oz. Booyah with 8 pound line on a spinning reel. All of the others were caught on a Ribbit frog. What fun. I hate to see it go.

R. I. P. Monticello