Another twenty pound mirror falls for my bait

I have been carp fishing a lot this week. Catching a personal best has gotten me fired up. I went striper fishing earlier in the week, but there has been a small window of bad evening tides. I’m sure fish could be caught, but since the tides were not ideal, I blatantly used that as an excuse to go carp fishing.

The last two nights I tried a spot I had never fished before. I knew it held carp but did not know anything else about it. It was on a river and shore access was quite good with a lot of shoreline. Also, I didn’t know the layout of the bottom. Was it deep? Would I get caught on the bottom on every cast? I went in blind and decided to figure it out on my own.

On Sunday night I hooked up with two carp. They were seven and fifteen pounds. I fished about 2 hours and was quite happy with the results. Also, I did not feel any hang ups on the bottom. So I thought it was a productive night.

On Monday I went back, I fished the same spot as the night before. After about 45 minutes I caught a very long but skinny five pounder. Hey, I’ll take it. Right after sunset as I was contemplating leaving I saw my rod bounce. I walked over to it. The line started to tighten up, but it was swimming off to the side. I set the hook. The fish took off on the longest run I have ever seen from a carp. I was afraid I would lose all my line so I started following down the bank. I also tightened my drag some, but it must have taken forty yards.

After the initial run it was a tug of war. I was using 8 foot surf rods and my reel was spooled with twenty pound Berkley Big Game. I knew I had a good fish. I also know that river fish are extremely strong compared to their lake living brothers. So I had no idea if I had a monster fish or one with a Napoleon complex.  After a few minutes I saw that it was fairly long but did not have that oversized “gut” some carp have. I got it in the net and I weighed it. Twenty pounds. This is the second twenty pound mirror I’ve gotten this week. Before this year, my largest mirror was seventeen.

Of course I let it go, and by that time it was dark enough to leave.  I am almost sad the tide is coming back around. Instead of going on an adventure this week on my days off, I might just carp fish morning till night. Even without twenty pound fish, I have really enjoyed carping this year much more than trout or largemouth bass fishing. I suppose if I have a really good night striper fishing this week, I’ll put carp on the back burner. If I don’t have a good striper night, I will be thinking “I could be carp fishing right now.”