48 Thiriji-Second Annual Meeting 



Si net' your ivquest for information as to the carp from an 

 angling standpoint, I have given the matter a great deal of at- 

 tention, and ha\-e been greatly surprised at the extent to which 

 carp are caught with hook and line. From Cairo to Dubuque on 

 the Mississippi river I have fonnd shores at all the towns lined 

 with people fishing for carp, all catching them. One day last 

 week, from the lower end of Peoria, Illinois river, to water works 

 point, a distance of three miles, I counted 1,103 people fishing 

 with hook and line, and on investigation developed that a large 

 per cent of them were taking carp. The majority of those canght 

 weighing a pound and as lieavv as five pounds, all of them proba- 

 bly nsed as food. 



Permit me to introduce here a letter from one of the liesi 

 known spoi-tsmcn in the state: 



Peoria, 111., June 23, 1903. 

 Hon. S. P. Bartlett, Esq., 



Superintendent Fish Commission, Quincy, 111. 

 Dear Sir: — 



Carp fishing with hook and line has now taken its place with 

 bass and other kinds of fishing. All along the river in this locality 

 carp are being caught; freely with hook and line this year, and to 

 say they are gamey, is not half expressing it. For the past month, 

 I have made it my business to go along the river and take notes of 

 this particular kind of fishing and talked with no less than 25 differ- 

 ent persons who were busy catching carp, and in every instance I 

 was told it was rare sport to hook a carp, as it was quite as much of 

 a trick to land one as it was to land a bass; dip nets were used gen- 

 erally to land the carp, as the activity of the fish when jerked out of 

 the water would tear the gills and free the fish quite often. The 

 bait used when fishing for carp is dough balls and partly boiled po- 

 tatoes, the latter being best in the opinion of the majority. The 

 carp will bite on worms quite freely also, and in two instances, I 

 found carp had been taken with minnows, something that has been 

 considered impossible heretofore, but in these two cases I am cer- 

 tain it was done, as I have the names of the parties who caught the 

 fish. An old German who lives here goes daily to the river with a 

 regular fly casting pole and reel to fish for carp, of course, he ex- 

 changes the fly for the regulation hook, but he used his reel in land- 

 ing the carp, and says there is no finer sport than fishing for carp. 

 This man uses partly boiled potatoes altogether and is very succes- 

 ful in taking carp in numbers daily. I have caught a great many 

 carp myself with hook and line, using potatoes, dough balls and 

 worms, and found that the partly boiled potatoes worked best, as the 

 carp seemed to take that particular bait when they would not bite on 



