Introduction
This guide was written with the intent to show players how to catch the Gibel Carp on Mosquito Lake. The decision was made to focus on float fishing only. While not everything was fully explored, it became apparent early on that the location and the sort bait used played a big influence. A total of 15 hours were spent on fishing, another 5 hours were spent on collecting data, sorting through it and gathering the results that are displayed in this guide. This guide covers basic information about the species, a review of the data collection techniques and results, discussion of techniques and rigs, a talk of the locations, some comments on hook and bait selection, and finally some points that I haven't covered, but could prove to be starting points for those anglers that want to dive further into the world of the Gibel Carp. Please note that fish behavior changes over time. Locations shown and baits used may not result in the same outcome as I had during the creation of this guide.
Species Overview
The Gibel Carp - otherwise known as Prussian Carp - is a fish of the Cyprininae subdivision of the cyprinid family. It is a valuable game fish.
It occurs in numerous fresh water bodies of Europe, in the lower reaches of the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya, in lakes on floodplains of Siberian rivers (up to the Kolyma River inclusively), in the Amur River basin, in rivers of the Russian Far East, in lakes on Sakhalin, in water bodies of China and Korea. This species was being distributed by humans from olden times and thus was introduced even to North America, Thailand and India.
Gibel carp prefers flowing water. It can live in big clean rivers and lakes as well as in overgrown ponds, marshes and ditches. Usually it doesn’t migrate, remaining in the same area. It can survive in low oxygenated water, and can also withstand a period, when the waterbody is completely frozen or dried out, without any damage to its vital functions, by burying itself into silt. Gibel carp’s favorite food includes insect larvae, plankton and simple algae. Gibel carp is normally smaller than Crucian Carp, it has bigger scales and a high and slightly flattened (but not very flat) body. Its back is dark, flanks are silvery, there is a black pellicle on its abdomen. Gibel carp’s dorsal fin is long and prickly. There are prickles in its anal fin too. Unlike common carp, it has no barbels. It has one row of pharyngeal teeth. Large specimens reach a length of 40 cm and a weight of about 1.5 to 2 kg.
Getting Started
Based on the above information plus what I could gather through other resources on the internet, I decided to start fishing for Gibel Carp close to the shores where there is lots of vegetation. While I knew that Gibel Carp can be caught both on float as well as on bottom fishing, I decided to focus on float fishing only, since this is the first method of fishing players are introduced to at this water body. I spend several hours trying different spots until I located three spots that yielded enough Gibel to start writing my report. Catching Gibel carp on a frequent basis proved to be harder than I initially thought. The depth and setup were easily figured out, but the hardest part was finding the right bait that didn't attract a whole lot of other species. Later on I learned Time of Day also proved to be a major factor in catching these silvery fish, as did type of weather. While there are plenty of Gibel Carp, they are not as easy to farm as their nephews the Crucian Carp and most of the time you'll find a collection of both species in your keepnet, with the Crucian being the dominant one.
Data Collection And Results
The first three sessions were held at 37:55. I choose this spot based on earlier experiences. While I did catch gibel carp in general, I caught more crucian carp, despite switching baits. For filling your net quickly and completing cafe orders for both gibel and crucian carp, this is a good spot though.
The second spot did wonders for me. It resulted in a lot more Gibel and a lot less Crucian. The only downside, the common carp loved this place as well and a few times broke my line off. Mind the common carp when fishing here!
The final spot didn't work out very well, but then I had a streak of bad Gibel weather as well. If the weather is better, I figure so will the overall haul of Gibel. There is some nice tench at this spot too.
Setup And Techniques
For fishing Gibel I used both the basic bottom rig as well as the slider rig. Both rigs gave equal amount of Gibel. I wanted to test other rigs as well, but during this period I stayed at a hotel and their firewall blocked direct access to the game. This made me force to play on my Steam account which is a low level and didn't have all float rigs unlocked.
There wasn't a notable difference between monofilament line and fluoro line. The same went for the usage of leaders. I caught trophy Gibel on both fishing with and without a leader and both fishing with mono line and with fluoro line.
As for hooks I went with size 18 up to size 8. I noticed that size 12 already reduced the amount of gibel carp, though those I did catch tended to be a little bit bigger in general. Another downside of using hooks size 12 to 8 was that it could attract bigger common carp as well. Given that it's mostly new players that will use this guide, they want to prevent hooking into a common carp that can wreck havoc on their gear easily.
I went with the Simmons Silk Series CL-14 for their shape and longer shank allows for the fish to not spit out the hook easily. Finally I went with a 5m - 6m rod length with a fast action, so I could cast out a little bit further and strike quicker. A fast strike isn't necessary, but it sure helps especially when fishing with multiple rods when there is a lot of fish activity.
Baits And Groundbaits
As stated earlier, it took me a while to figure out a bait that was good enough in producing enough Gibel carp and reduce the amount of side catches. While I caught plenty of gibel on maggots and cheese dough, these too produced a lot of tench, crucian carp, perch and common roaches. In the end it proved that certain boilies worked good, as well as Semolina. With Milk Peach boilies I was able to reduce the amount of crucian carp significantly, to the point where I had 75% gibel and only 20% crucian (with 5% being other fish species such as common carp).
Semolina, Milk Peach 12 boilies and Egg Dough proved to generate the biggest gibel carp. However, with Wet Bread and Worms, I caught a few trophies too. The downside of the latter two baits though is that they also attract a lot of other fish species. For me, Milk Peach 12 was the best one in generating both primarily gibel carp and good sized gibel carp. I have been looking for another bait, but couldn't find it and didn't have the time to test all types of baits and boilies. I'm confident though that there are more boilies that will yield the same results as Milk Peach 12.
I used standard Gibel/Crucian carp mix with 10/10 quality. It definitely increased the amount of gibel, however it also increased the amount of crucians. I ran out of time to use self made groundbait and therefore haven't tested it, but as with other species, I'm confident that certain home made groundbait will work better than the standard mix the game provides.
Locations
I've fished close to the shores, but also tested the deeper waters. Unfortunately, the deep holes didn't generate Gibel, they were only rare. Closer to the reeds and liliepads however, there would be an abundance of Gibel. The spots marked down are the three spots that I fished. There are however more spots that are similar in vegetation and depth at Mosquito lake. In general, having depth between 50-100cm seemed to be the place where Gibel resides the most.
37:55 - Good spot, but also loads of crucian carp. On occassion tench, chub and common carp
36:47 - Excellent spot, hardly any crucian carp. More common carp though, so be careful.
56:45 - Fair spot, it has a few tench and a few crucians but also does well with gibel. Couldn't test it further due to bad weather.
Weather And Time Of Day
Whereas Crucians aren't really affected by weather and are active throughout the day, this does not go for Gibel Carp. They have a high preference for sunny days, will be medium active during clear and overcasted days, but hardly not active during cloudy, rain or thunderstorms. Next to the weather, also the time of day plays a major factor when going after Gibel carp. They show a clear peak during morning hours, but quickly reduce in numbers when it reaches late morning and throughout the rest of the day they can only be caught a few at a time. This makes the gibel - and more so the trophy gibel - harder to catch.
Validation
After collecting all my findings, I returned to spot #2, used Milk Peach 12 on all three setups (slider rigs) and started fishing for another real life hour. I kept a close eye on the weather and minded the time of day. This resulted in catching another trophy gibel as well as having 36 gibel out of a total of 54 fish. While trophy Gibel were not really hard to find - I caught them on wet bread, worms, maggots, semolina, egg dough and milky peach 12), it was nice to catch my biggest one during this session.
Conclusion
The Gibel Carp is a bit picky when it comes to time of day, weather and baits. It is often accompanied by it's nephew the Crucian Carp, though if you find a spot without Crucians, changes are there will definitely be Common Carp to attack your bait as well. Despite that the Gibel Carp is picky for weather and time of day, they are not that picky about their food and you can catch them on a lot of different baits.
There are a few roads I couldn't pursue due to time or circumstances. I encourage the avid angler to look further into the usage of different rig types. I also like to appeal towards catching these silver fish on bottom setups, for they sure can be caught on them. Perhaps with the right setup and the right bait, you too will find a method to exclude the Crucian and focus solely on Gibel.
I didn't test different types of groundbait other than the Gibel/Crucian mix the game provides. Given how other fish species respond to player created groundbaits, I'm sure there is a method there to generate more Gibel and exclude other species.
Furthermore, while I didn't see a difference in the usage of a leader and fishing without one, I did get an inkling that maybe in combination with a different rig type or for bottom fishing, this may lead to a significant difference. I didn't have time to pursue this notion.
Finally, as I stated above, I'm sure there is another type of bait that too works very well for Gibel and excludes its bronze nephew more.
Thank you for reading my report, I hope the handouts I've given will help you in targeting this fish. They are quite fun to catch, they don't give a massive fight but they do reward fairly decent for the larger species and will definitely help out new players in increasing their amount of silver.
Until next time - Tight Lines!
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1700829097
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