CARP tournament official scouts river for best sections

MASSENA — David R. Moore grinds up his pineapple boilies to bait his two fishing poles next to the Massena Intake Boat Launch. He's looking for carp, but not just for a few hours' recreation. He's a professional, and it shows. His truck, the license plate of which reads "BIG CARP," is full of the latest gear and $500 poles.

He's scouting sites for the World Carp Championship, two years ahead of time.

"We're trying to find enough room for 150 pairs," Mr. Moore said Thursday. "We're just kind of checking for sections; you can't have one team off by itself. They kind of monitor themselves."

In the three days Mr. Moore has been scouting the St. Lawrence River, he's had only one bite. The fish got away, but he says he's not worried; the fish are there, whether he catches them or not.

"We'd hope we'd have more, but that's the way it goes," he said. "I was in France for a week and didn't catch anything."

Mr. Moore is the co-founder of the American Carp Society and tournament director of the Catch and Release Professional, or CARP, tournament series, which includes the World Championship. He also tours around the world, competing in carp tournaments.

Though the tournament is two years away, it's already on the radar for serious carp anglers. Countries including Mexico, Russia, England and South Africa have signed up to send 80 teams to St. Lawrence County's competition, scheduled for late September 2011. People from around the world will be camped out along the river, from Ogdensburg to Massena.

"There were 18 countries last year. We're going to have that many and a few more," in 2011, Mr. Moore said. "That's the cool thing about carp fishing, they're the only fish you can do globally because they're pretty much everywhere."

This will be the second time the World Carp Tournament has come to the north country. It was here in 2005, the first year the tournament was held in the United States. The competition is five days of nonstop fishing; day and night, anglers are never far from their poles, in case they get a bite.

But fishermen often are here for longer than the five days of the tournament.

"These teams come beforehand to scout out the riverbank. Some of the teams were here a month last time," said Patricia L. McKeown, executive director of the St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce, which is hosting the competition. "It's on our watch to make sure they have a good time. We're going to try to give them parties at the head and tail of the thing."

When the anglers were here last time, they spent more than $500,000 in the area on everything from food and hotels to rental cars and slot machines at the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino, according to Kathleen A. Kelly-Ori, president of Stellar Marketing Solutions in Massena. She works with Mr. Moore to promote the event.

Even before carp tournaments came to the area, there were carp angling enthusiasts coming to fish the St. Lawrence.

"If you talked to people at the grocery store in Waddington, they said, 'Oh, yeah, there are a couple guys from England or Holland fishing,'" Ms. Kelly-Ori said. "I think with all the tournaments, it's spawned all the interest."

One of those angling enthusiasts, Robert J. Giordano moved here from Colorado Springs, Colo., to be closer to his favorite fish. He already has signed up to be in the 2011 tournament and was out last week with Mr. Moore, scouting for places for the teams to park their lines.

"In Colorado, I had to drive 45 miles to find big carp," he said. "Here, I just walk out the door."