Sight Fishing and Fish ID Help

[Dustin07]

So we went out to sammamish for a couple hours Sunday, what a day! Beautiful weather, the boat was running the best its ran all year (needed battery) and we caught quite a few perch.

The downside, LOL, is that we weren't fishing for perch, we were fishing for bass. (but so far I have only caught fingerlings, still learning..)

We found an extremly shallow area near some massive pilings and pulled the boat in pretty shallow, anchored at about 10'. We could see huge fish in the shallows swimming around. We assumed they were bass and through everything we had at them. A variety of different plastics, spinners, cranks, etc. There were feeder fish everywhere and we couldn't get these hogs to even look at our lures.

The big fish we were watching and assumed were bass, were patrolling a region about 40 yards wide (they'd swim by and come back) and there were some with darker backs, some with yellower backs, and then there were a couple that looked like they had wider heads and browner backs. I thought there were three different types of fish here. I figured bass and possibly Carp?

Thing is, they were all huge. The smallest had to be pushing 18" with some of them looking well over 20-22+ inches. Of course this is through 4' or so of water so the reflection could have fooled me.


Thoughts? What were we casting at? If they were bass..... ideas?

[The Quadfather]

It's always possible they were carp. The carp are in the shallows this time of year.

[Dustin07]

When they were ignoring pretty much everything we through at them, and based upon their size, that's what I started to think.

[Anonymous]

I'd go with carp. Bass blend into their surroundings better and are more a ambush type of predator and not likely to be seen swimming as a school in open shallow water. The carp you see around here can get big, over 20lbs, and are a blast to catch and vary in color from nearly all black to light brown and have very large scales. Toss them flavored dough balls and/or a gob of worms and hang on.

[Dustin07]

I'd go with carp. Bass blend into their surroundings better and are more a ambush type of predator and not likely to be seen swimming as a school in open shallow water. The carp you see around here can get big, over 20lbs, and area blast to catch and vary in color from nearly all black to light brown and have very large scales. Toss them flavored dough balls and/or a gob of worms and hang on.

LOL thanks! I think maybe in the future if the fishing is slow it's always nice to reel in something.

[davidwat1]

As Quad said it's possible they were carp, but it's also extremely likely you were staring at some BIG largemouth along with them. This happens every year at this time on Sammamish and I've had giant largemouth follow me around like a pet dog without a care in the world, you can also find some big girls suspended in the pilings again not a care in the world. Problem is you ain't gonna catch them, unless you get really lucky. they just aren't aggressive or eating when they are in this mode, they are fun to watch, but frustrating as hell to try and catch. The carp get thick up there, so if you saw one, you would likely have seen a whole bunch of them, and they get real spooky when you get up on them. If they sat there and stared at you or completely ignored you even when you were ontop of them, then they were largemouth guaranteed! -Dave

[Dustin07]

As Quad said it's possible they were carp, but it's also extremely likely you were staring at some BIG largemouth along with them. This happens every year at this time on Sammamish and I've had giant largemouth follow me around like a pet dog without a care in the world, you can also find some big girls suspended in the pilings again not a care in the world. Problem is you ain't gonna catch them, unless you get really lucky. they just aren't aggressive or eating when they are in this mode, they are fun to watch, but frustrating as hell to try and catch. The carp get thick up there, so if you saw one, you would likely have seen a whole bunch of them, and they get real spooky when you get up on them. If they sat there and stared at you or completely ignored you even when you were ontop of them, then they were largemouth guaranteed! -Dave

I'm thinking maybe we were looking at both Carp and LMB then. We were back by the pilings and there were distinctly at least two different colored beasts, if not three. None of them were overly spooky but they did come and go.

I'm going to work the mouth of the river harder next time I head out and then jet back to where I saw these guys and play with them a bit again. Maybe I'll try the gob of worms strategy in case I am looking at carp alone.

[davidwat1]

Hey Dustin, just want to let you know I checked the area out on Friday for a few minutes. Definitely some gorilla carp up there 20lbs + no doubt, I saw probably a dozen largemouth, none that I would consider giants, but a couple that were in the 5 lb range, most of them were in the 1-3 lb range, a few were on beds, but the beds up there are usually harder to identify. they use the edge of the wood debris, or anything on the bottom that is a little bit harder than that soft muck in the cove. You aren't likely to spot the big serving plate size beds with the gravel etc., it's too soft up there for that, but they seem to make the best out of what hard cover they can find. Also spotted a couple bigger largemouth suspended in the pilings along the shore in that same area. -Dave

[fishingboy]

as everybody said i go for carp!!!

[Dustin07]

Hey Dustin, just want to let you know I checked the area out on Friday for a few minutes. Definitely some gorilla carp up there 20lbs + no doubt, I saw probably a dozen largemouth, none that I would consider giants, but a couple that were in the 5 lb range, most of them were in the 1-3 lb range, a few were on beds, but the beds up there are usually harder to identify. they use the edge of the wood debris, or anything on the bottom that is a little bit harder than that soft muck in the cove. You aren't likely to spot the big serving plate size beds with the gravel etc., it's too soft up there for that, but they seem to make the best out of what hard cover they can find. Also spotted a couple bigger largemouth suspended in the pilings along the shore in that same area. -Dave

Cool thanks for the confirmation Dave! I figured there were carp, but based upon the distinct color differences on some I thought something else must be swiming with them.

I'm very hesitant to get any closer to those pilings. I'd like to boat right up to them but the Lund sits a little deeper than a true bass boat. we had it up to a about 4-5' of depth at one point, I just don't like running it shallow where I don't know what logs are hanging out down there.

[davidwat1]

as long as you take your time, you can get pretty far in there, but it does get real shallow back there. Out at the pilings, be real careful, there are a couple of pilings that have a peice of rebar or something like that sticking out of them. I go up there all the time, but I'm always afraid one of these days I'm going to be careless and jam that rebar rod through my hull or something! You should be able to follow the pilings edges back until it gets too shallow, you'll see a distinct gap between the two sets of pilings and that's about where it gets real shallow, then tie off on one of them and just cast back into the shallow flat for those carp if that's what you are after! Before long that area will be completely covered in lily pads and you'll need a pushpole to move around back there. Good luck!