JANUARY 27, 2012

Superlatives do not begin to describe how phenominal yeasterday was. If a picture is worth a thousand words, well here are seven thousand words to describe my day. I will explain it all below the pictures

Paul's first ever January carp.

Friday was my day off. The predicted temperature was supposed to be 55 degrees and rainy. I decided to give carp fishing a try. I went to the place I caught my January carp a week before. When I got there it was rainy, cold and damp. However, I was warmed by the fact my friend Dave and another member of our carp group were their fishing. Paul is a great guy, I hadn't seen him since the fall. I set up my baits near theirs and backed my truck right up to Paul's so I could talk to them. We all stayed fairly dry because we sat under our liftgates.

Paul caught the first carp. It was his first ever January carp. He caught it on doughballs... Interesting. We caught a couple more fish. We each had a couple more runs. Considering this was January 27, the temp was actually 41 degrees and it was raining, six hits in a couple hours was awesome.

I, however dressed like it was going to be 55 degrees. I wore one pair of sweatpants that got soaked through when I landed my second fish. Fishing was great but after four hours hypothermia was setting in and I was shivering all over. I left while Dave stayed a little while longer. I went home took a 20 minute hot shower, warmed up and planned on watching movies all night.

Then... I got the bug to go striper fishing. I tried to talk myself out of it. It was still raining, it was cold. The tide was terrible ( low) and fishing was much better early in the week. Then as I was going back and forth DJ said this " Dad, if you don't go Mr. Pickering is going to call you and tell you big keepers are everywhere" So I went.

I went alone. It was rainy when I left, I didn't want to put anyone else through the hell I was about to experience. I wasn't sure if Dave would be fishing, he after all spent five hours fishing in the cold earlier in the day. When I got to the spot, Dave had already been fishing for an hour. He hadn't even gotten a bump. Wonderful! Actually, that is what I expected, I really didn't plan on catching much. One fish would have been great. We fished together for over 90 minutes without a fish. We would piggy back each other. We would fish a spot, then I'd move ahead of him for a couple minutes, then he would move ahead of me, until we found fish. Finally, after almost two hours we each caght a small one.

We fished another half hour without any more hits. We figured a school of small ones went through and that was it. We were about to leave and working our way to our cars, and bang! We started getting into fish. For the first two hours one fish each. For the next hour it was hot and heavy.  These were not little fish either. All week we were catching fish about 22-23 inches. All the fish combined were averaging 26-27. That's a decent schoolie. Dave had at least three that were very close to keeper size that were within an inch of 28 inches.

While we were into these fish, Dave hoked a decent one. Three seconds later so did I. We had doubles of nice fish at the same time. Dave took at least five minutes to land his. I was using my trout rod ( still hoping to land a keeper on six pound test). I knew I had on a decent fish. After about 10 minutes, I finally saw it. It was absolutely a keeper and not a skinny little 28 incher.  This fish had shoulders. After another 10 minutes, with Dave's help with the net, I landed it. It was a hefty 30-31 inch long fish. Dave's fish was also a keeper ( I call them keepers, but we let them all go). We had to get a picture of that ( see below). That was the highlight, but after we let these fish go we still caught a few more nice fish. What a night!!! 

My first January carp!!!

Last night I got a call from my friend Dave who invited me to go carp fishing with him today. I cheerfully excepted. I've said before, time goes by much faster in the cold when you have someone to talk too. I  got up a little late today, but made it to our predetermined destination for the predetermined time of 10 AM.

When I got there Dave said that he wasn't sure if we'd get any. I explained I was there just for fun. Any actual fish caught would be a HUGE BONUS. Catching any warm water fish in January is a crap shoot. I sure as hell wouldn't feel disappointed if I didn't get any. Besides I was fishing with a " professional" so I know going in that he is much more likely to catch the fish if only one is caught.  We baited up. We were both using sweet corn fished behind a method ball wrapped around the sinker.

We waited and waited and waited for only about 40 minutes ( tricked ya, didn't I ) before I got the first run. In real cold water carp along with most fish get sluggish.  They are usually slower and instead of a series of runs, its usually a series of taps.  Not this fish. It took off like a bullet. After I set the hook it actually jumped out of the water. I rarely if ever saw that from a carp, nevermind on January 13! I have to say the carp put quite a show on, between the screaming run, the jump then another roll on the surface, both Dave and I were impressed. The fish was somewhere around 9-10 pounds. I let it go after a couple pictures.

A few mintues later I hooked another fish. Dave grabbed the net again. Just as he was saying that I "had the hot hand" his rod took off. We couldn't believe it DOUBLES!!! I landed my fish quickly and took it out of the net and left the hook in. I ran over with the net and landed Dave's fish. Both were about the exact same size. Maybe 8 pounds. We both had smiles. Nothing better than two fish on at the same time. I unhooked my fish, Dave got a picture. He unhooked his carp and I took a picture for him. Like he said if you told anyone about today who knows about carp fishing " they would never believe it."

After that, the fish settled down. Dave landed a sucker. I've been wanting to catch a sucker for a year so I'm going to have to fish that spot again. We left at 1 PM. Three carp for this time of year is excellent. Also considering how feisty they were  made it that much more fun. What a day!