Syracuse.com - Local carp fishing team angling for good finish in Wild Carp Classic which begins today

[HuntingNY-News]

Starting at 10 a.m. today, 45 two-person teams will be fishing for 50 straight hours, rain or shine, at predetermined sites, called pegs, along the river. Peter Chen / The Post-Standard ERIC AMES(left), of Constantia, and Steven Ware, of Fayetteville, are teammates who will be competing in Sunday’s Wild Carp Classic in Baldwinsville. They are standing along the shore of the Onondaga Lake Inlet, near Wegman’s Good Dog Park, in Liverpool. Go to syracuse.com/videos to watch Ames and Ware practic´ing on the Seneca River last week. Competitive carp anglers Eric Ames and Steven Ware often get ribbed about their passion.“Yeah, I always get the fun and games about it at work,” Ware said. “But if you like to catch a lot of big fish, there is no other fishing than carp fishing. It’s unique. You’re drawing the fish to you and holding them there, rather than pursuing the fish. It takes a certain kind of skill.” Ames added, “People ask me what I’m doing catching all those slimy, smelly fish. My response is that I’ve probably caught more fish in a short period of time than some people have caught in their entire lifetime.”The two are the top local team going into today’s Wild Carp Classic on the Seneca River, which is the marquee event of five catch-and-release tournaments slated for this week.Starting at 10 a.m. today, 45 two-person teams will be fishing for 50 straight hours, rain or shine, at predetermined sites, called pegs, along the river. Competitors, who paid $600 per team to enter, are coming from 11 states, Canada and the United Kingdom. The team with the most total weight of fish caught will earn $5,400, in addition to other prizes.Ames, 43, who owns a local construction company, and Ware, 52, a carpenter, have been fishing in the big spring carp tournaments on the Seneca River since the events started five years ago. In 2009, they finished second by catching 2,500 pounds of carp and earned $3,500. It was the best local finish ever in the Seneca River competitions, which annually feature anglers from Europe, where carp fishing enjoys an elevated status, like bass fishing in this country.“In 2009, we stayed up 60 straight hours, being up for an additional five hours on either side of the competition,” said Ware, who lives in Fayetteville. “We were hurting. I wore rubber boots the whole time. One of my toenails fell off.”The two have been fishing for five years as a team in tournaments on the Seneca and St. Lawrence Rivers. In their best year they only earned “a couple of thousand apiece.” Their biggest carp weighed in “the mid-30s.”“We’re just in it for the enjoyment of fishing, the sport,” Ames said. Both anglers say they’ve each spent more than $8,000 for special 12- to 13-foot carp fishing rods and reels equipped with 60-pound braided line, pole racks, bite detectors, flavored scents and bait, special carp nets and a host of other equipment and creature comforts that have mostly been purchased online from English and Scottish tackle suppliers.The two have fished for other fish throughout their lives — trout, bass, walleye, even marlin — but at this point carp fishing is their favorite. In addition to catching lots of big fish, they enjoy the challenge of putting out all sorts of bait into the water, trying to figure what will bring and hold the carp to their area so they can hook them.They noted that the average competitive carp angler is 45 years or older and college-educated.Last spring, the Seneca River was high and muddy, conditions that put a damper on the amount of fish caught during this competition. This year, the conditions look great, they said.“We’ll have as good a chance to win as anyone. If we get the right spot and work it right, we’ll do well,” Ames said.Also this week The Wild Carp Classic ends at noon Tuesday. The action continues with the JBG Triathlon, featuring three individual fishing competitions: the Big Carp Challenge (Wednesday), the Big 4 Challenge (Thursday) and the Total Weight Challenge (Friday).For more on the events, see the Wild Carp Week Web site.

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