# 3 day of good Griggs Resevoir carping



## GMR_Guy (Apr 10, 2004)

I headed off to Columbus on early Tuesday morning for three days of carping at Griggs Resevoir. Griggs is adifferent type of water that I am accustomed to fishing. It is really a a cross between a lake and a river (maybe River Rat might halfway like it). There isn't much structure or cover on Griggs. It's a very featureless lake. Still, I did have some spots picked out from the topo maps and wanted to try them. The first spot turned out to be too shallow, thus wasting 2 hours of prime morning fishing time. So I decided to check out some of the other promising areas. The cove on the lower west side, the one that looked good on the map, turned out to be occupied by a boat dock. After more exploring, I returned close to where I had started. This area a bit downstream from where I had fished earlier had much deeper water. The baiting began. The results of the first day were less than impressive. I managed two 28" carp and 3 nice channel cats. At least I didn't get skunked. I was coninced that this would be a good spot if I did some proper prebaiting. So I threw out a big bucket of maize and sweet corn and went to the Holiday Inn to relax from a long day of fishing. The next morning I returned to the spot and the first hour produced line bites, but no fishing. At that point I had to take a call from a mother nature. Not wanting to be arrested for indecent exposure, I hurredly packed up (more like threw it in the car) all my carp gear and headed off to a nearby McDonalds. Beads of sweat were forming on my forehead, but I survived. 15 minutes later as I was back at the spot and quickly set up camp. From that point on, except between 1 pm and 5 pm, there was a steady stream of carp. About half of them were between 26" and 30" and weighed up to 15 lbs. Though the numbers were good, I still didn't get that new personal best that I came for. I would do something different the next day. I slept in the next day and did some more scouting. Out of laziness, I picked a spot on the east side of the lake about a 1000 feet upstream from Fishinger Road. The spot had a nice gravel shoreline and I could park my car close by. This was a spot that someone would chooose if they didn't know anything about fishing. It was in the middle of a long featureless stretch. It was chumming that would turn this nothing spot into a spot worth fishing. There were not any signs of life when I first arrived, but an hour later the carp had evidently found the scent of my chum. The first carp of the day was 31" and weighed 14.75 lbs. The carp bite was fairly steady throughout the day - except for a 90 minute period started by a motor boat travelling about 25 feet from me  - he never saw me - he was more intent on shouting orders to the numerous PYTs in their rowboats. The next to last fish of the trip was the biggest and put up a unique fight. After making the customary big inital drag-screeching run, the fish reversed direction and headed at me at full speed. I reeled as fast as I could to keep the slack out of the line. I also loosened up the drag because I knew he would make a turn back out for deep water (I must brag and say that this battle showed my experience). The fish headed out for the deep when he saw me, but my drag gave him all the line he needed. As daylight faded away, a 32" 17.5 lb made its way into the net. The reactions of some onlookers were quite funny. On that last day, I met a lot of people and explained to them my alien euro gear. I showed people how to bait a hook with sweetcorn and extolled the virtues of frequent chumming. The peop;le were all very friendly and I must say that the area of Griggs Resevoir is a nice one.

In the following photos you'll see that some of the carp are quite wide. These fish are not deformed or laying with their body curved - some of them have real thick backs. I will definitely return to Griggs next spring in search of a pre-spawn monster. I'll also have to go further upstream to O' Shaugnessy Resevoir and make a run for those carp. Alum, Griggs, Hoover, O' Shaughnessy, Hoover, Scioto, Olentangy, Darby - you Columbus carpers are lucky.


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## GMR_Guy (Apr 10, 2004)

39.1 kb photo limit. Wow.


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## GMR_Guy (Apr 10, 2004)

Her's more of those fatties.


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## cwcarper (Apr 5, 2004)

Glad to see you got into some chunky carp out there. I've always liked fishing Griggs, but rarely have the time to do the prebaiting i feel is necessary to be successful there. I came by on tuesday, but it must have been around the time you were scouting new spots or so. I didn't have a whole lot of time to fish so it was ok. By the way...that lazy gravel spot upstream from Fishinger that doesn't look like much sounds like my "hotspot"...i always seem to do well there, though it does require some chum.


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## GMR_Guy (Apr 10, 2004)

Too bad I missed you. I'll definitely be there again next year and also want to try O' Shaughnessy and Hoover in the future. One thing that has me wondering about O'Shaughnessy is if there is enough current going through to keep a thermocline from forming. If so, O'S might have the unique distinction of having the deepest, oxygenated water in the whole state - which might help it grow bigger carp.


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## flathunter (Apr 5, 2004)

gmr guy, you can post full size pictures if you download them first in the photo gallery..No size limit there..Nice Carp!


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