The Ontario government recently announced new regulations to make fishing for common carp more accessible. Now anglers will be able to use up to three lines when targeting common carp in various places - including our local lakes.
"I'm delighted that our government's new regulations will make carp fishing more enjoyable and more accessible," said Lisa MacLeod, Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries, in a recent news release.
In order to use more than one line, anglers must use bait that is plant-based, or artificial corn. When fishing from shore, each line being used can be no further than two metres from another line the angler is using. When fishing from a vessel, all lines must be on board the vessel with the angler.
Wes Winkel, owner of Ellwood Epps Sporting Goods in Severn Township, says the new regulations around carp fishing could attract new fishermen to the Georgian Bay and Simcoe area.
“Carp tend to live in shallow water, shallow rivers or warm water lakes. Typically, people who are fishing for carp don’t have boats, so we see a lot of beginner fishermen targeting carp more,” he said.
Carp are a popular fish to target across the pond in Europe. As a result, Winkel says a lot of the area's carp fishermen are European Canadians, which might have inspired the government to put in place the new regulations.
“It’s a popular method in Europe, so I’m sure somebody has convinced them that it’s a reasonable targeting method,” he said.
Winkel also speculates that allowing anglers to have multiple lines may encourage them to fish alone or at a social distance, whereas before, they would bring multiple people fishing so they could have multiple lines in the water.
“People tend to put multiple lines out from shore with different baits on them because carp are bottom feeders. People will try anything from minnows to chunks of meat, and because it’s a stationary bait it’s easy to use multiple lines,” he explained.
While Winkel doesn’t expect the new regulations to create a booming market for carp fishing, he says it could draw more anglers to the local area.
“I don’t see there being a large uptick. In our region, carp is not a highly targeted species and I don’t think it’s on a lot of people's radar,” he said.
“But I do believe that more people will now come into our area to try to fish for it. We have some decent size carp on the Severn River.”
