Not only do they fight hard, carp get big, as proven by this 53-plus-pound Buckeye State bugle mouth.

Growing up in the Midwest with my fishing limited to a local water supply reservoir, the first time I ever hooked a fish that actually pulled back came the summer I was 8 years old. My dad and I would spend most summer Sunday afternoons anchored off a steep bluff, coaxing smallish bluegills and crappies out of the shady pockets created by the ever-eroding shale bank. By mid-afternoon it was routine for my dad to quaff a Weideman beer to wash down the egg salad sandwiches and Ruffles we had for lunch, stretch out on a bench seat and take a nap. I knew that when he awoke or I ran out of bait, whichever came first, the fishing was over. I learned to become a very quiet angler and to cut the final red worms into pieces with my Cub Scout knife to make the bait last longer.

Homemade dough balls are popular baits among anglers targeting carp, who contend that part of the fun is developing their own secret recipes.

One sultry August afternoon while my pop sawed logs, I lost my last worm piece to a well-placed peck by a belligerent bluegill and was out of live bait. Next to the empty worm carton in the cooler were the remnants of lunch, including Wonder bread crusts I had eaten around and cast aside. I was able to glean a pea-sized ball of white dough from the leftovers, which I wadded onto the size 12 bait-holder hook and cast the bobbered rig up tight against the wall of shale.

It wasn’t long before the bobber was pulled below by whatever had eaten my dough ball. Expecting yet another panfish, when I twitched the tip of the Zebco 202 rod and reel combo to set the hook, the rig was almost jerked from my hands! I remember thinking this clearly wasn’t a sunfish. Between the screeching of the plastic drag system and my scrambling about on the deck doing my best to at least see what behemoth had taken my bread ball before it broke my line, my dad woke up and simply watched, landing net in hand.

It was a grand battle, which drew the attention of anglers anchored nearby and made me feel like a champion fisherman. That is, until the big yellow fish surfaced and I heard one guy remark, “Oh, it’s just a carp.”

We netted the exhausted fish which, weighing perhaps five pounds, was by far the largest I had ever hooked. I wanted to keep the carp to have it mounted, but my dad had other ideas and before I knew it the bugle mouth was free of the tiny hook and released into the depths.

All I knew was I had finally caught a fish with enough pull to engage my reel’s drag and bring me to my knees when it ran. It felt grand! To this day, when I feel the need to hook a fish that actually pulls back, I turn to carp.

That’s especially true in late summer, when many gamefish are tough to find and fool. Not so carp, which remain active and hungry throughout the hot summer months and, along with resident catfish, are likely to be the largest fish you can catch in a particular body of water. What’s more, carp can often be found feeding in water shallow enough to sight fish, using rod and reel or bow and reel.

Broad and stable, pontoon boats are great choices for sneaking within bow or casting range of carp.

Bow fishing for carp and other species is the subject of another column, but catching a common carp on hook and line can be surprisingly simple. While there are dozens of prepared dough baits and hundreds of recipes available for concocting your own carp offerings, most of which can be very effective, I have found that canned corn is my go-to bait when I want to get someone hooked-up to a big fish. At the grocery store I buy a few of the cheapest cans of corn I can find on the shelves. That said, after one frustrating carp outing spent trying to open a conventional can sans can opener, I have learned to purchase cans that offer a pull top option to open, which can cost a few cents more.

When it’s time to fish, from shore or boat, I identify likely carp-holding shallows, either from personal experience or by scouting a bit. Backwaters, pools below riffles, upper ends of reservoirs – all are likely carp haunts this time of year. Then I take a handful of corn and toss it out across the area I plan to plant my baited hook. Sometimes within minutes, but often a half hour or so later, any carp in the area will pick up on the scent of corn and converge on the spot to feed. If I’m lucky, one will suck up my circle-hook baited with several kernels of the same stuff I used as chum. I’ll use as little weight as possible to pin the rig to the bottom, using a sliding egg sinker if needed for longer casts. Then I’ll leave the rod in a holder and relax.

When a fish takes the bait, the initial run will “set” the circle hook in the carp’s bulbous lips when I allow the line to come tight against the reel. That’s when the fun starts. Carp remind me a lot of bonefish, which are at the other end of the gamefish spectrum despite the fact that, like carp, bonefish never jump but make long, powerful runs – and as with carp, few folks eat bonefish.

Catching hard-charging carp on light tackle is as fun a way to spend a few hours fishing as I know of, yet few boat anglers target them. I guess that leaves more of the fighters for me to hook, but from boat or shore, finding healthy numbers of carp to catch is rarely a problem! So sic ‘em, with corn or dough or arrow and bow.

Shallow flats covered in clear, late-summer water can offer sight fishing for carp as they “make mud” while nudging aquatic insects out of the soft bottom.