The carp addiction – by Pali

Try it once and Carping can get you hooked for life!

As mentioned in my first blog post, I’m an addict angler and one of my poisons is Carp fishing.

First time I heard about carp fishing was from a mate I knew thru a friend’s Chat room, he was always on about all these huge carps he was landing. And yeah yeah it’s all great, everyone know how fishermen like to tell tales and on their way home the fish grow an extra foot and gain a few pounds. I really didn’t know anything about carp fishing, and did not pay much attention to his ½drunk fisherman tales to begin with.

Then one day I’m out fishing for bait in a pond I at the time just recently heard about, I see these 3 guys with a lot of fancy equipment. At least it looked very fancy to me as a regular Joe, who might been fishing for many years but mainly for trout and pike. They are there with some odd tents (bivys) and electronic bait alarms and what not; I’m standing at fair distance fishing for my common roaches that I’m going to use for bait in the following weekend for Pike fishing. I don’t know what to think, besides “isn’t that a bit too much equipment and taking all the fun out of fishing with electronic bait alarms?”

Short after one of their alarms go off and this funny looking little fella come running out of his tent, like a Jack-in-the-box he’s running to his rod. In a speed that’s normally only seen if someone just knocked over a Harley Davidson outside a Biker bar, he reaches his rod and picks it up and set’s the hook. Now it got interesting, it was clearly not a small fish he just hooked.

By the bend on his rod and the scream from his reel, that was not a bad size fish at all. I took a sip of my beer and continued to fish for my puny little roaches, thinking “Ahh they are pike fishing and he had hooked a large Pike, good for them”.

But after good fight he landed something I had to go investigate, I was standing too far away to see what he just caught. But not that far away, that it wasn’t clear to me that, it was defiantly not a pike!

I get over there and his mates are taking pictures, of the younger fella and his catch. And WOW what a fish he had landed, wonderful scales in a pattern I had never seen before and this fish was big, 15-20 pounds at least is my guess. I was puzzled and just had to bother the little hippy looking fella who just landed it, with a few questions. “Ummm I might be asking stupid, but ummm what is that u just caught there?” He lookes odd at me, like 'you got a rod in your hand and you don’t know what’s in the water?' But he kindly told me it was a Mirror carp, that they were carp anglers and that was why they had all this equipment. So maybe my chat buddy wasn’t all full of crap after all, after a few minutes I found out that not only wasn’t he full of it. I had in fact just met 3 of his fishing buddies; they not only became much friendlier once they figured out that I knew a mate of theirs. I now got a cold beer and the “big tour”, well they told me about the boilie baits they were using, the hair rig and how it worked.  I should later find out, that was just a minor part of carp fishing.

I went back to my fishing, later said good bye to them and wished them a good weekend. Now I went home and started to look up some carp videos on YouTube, I was sold and I had to try this - but I had none of all the equipment they had. No Carp rods, no boilies or hair rigs and further more I had never seen any of that stuff at the tackle stores I normally would buy my gear at. But no worry’s I had the internet; it would just be a matter of asking Google. After 5 min I kind of lost all hope, all the equipment I found was out of my price range.

The past years I have been without a desent paying job, I have been studying (since I gave tat up when my daughter was little) and doing volunteer work for Red Cross and many other things that don’t really pay or pay very well money wise. None the less, do good things and good things will happen to you. A few weeks later I was at the same pond, with my rod and across the pond I see a bivy kind of like the once I’ve seen the other carp anglers had. A bit fancier but still the same, and I just had to check it out. I’m met by two really nice young anglers, about 10 years younger than me with a beer in their hand. Asking me before I get to say anything if I could drink a cold one, and how can anyone say no to a kind offer like that?

I tell them how I’m interested in getting into this carp fishing game, but I had been looking at rods and equipment and to be honest it was a bit too expensive. A few min later they told me, not to worry as they had some cheap beginner gear from when they started. If I was serious they would sell me 3 rods, with rod pod and bait alarms in a carry bag for 150$. They had upgraded and didn’t use it anymore, so they would rather sell it cheap and see it put to good use, then let it collect dust at home in the attic. Sounded very fair to me, I struck a deal with them. If I would come back with cash, one of them would go home and pick it up and we could meet back at the pond in a few hours. Also if I was up for it, I could stay the night and they would show me how to fish with it.

I finished my beer, packed my rod and everything up and drove home. On the way home I stopped by the ATM, got home picked up my beanbag chair, kissed my girlfriend and told her I would go carp fishing overnight. An hour or so later I am back at the pond, it’s now twilight and I hook up with the two guys who are already waiting on me there. I pay them and get a hold-all bag with 3 rods, 3 reels , 3 bait alarms and a rod pod, they also gave me some end tackle, rigs and a few boilies. Around dusk I’m about ready and are able to cast out with my 3 new rods, after casting out I sit down at the camp fire they have going on in my beanbag. Open’s a beer and getting ready for a long night of cozy fishing! The 2 guys are like “Are you not going to put up a tent or something before it get’ total dark?” They look at me like I’m crazy when I calm and relaxed tell em I got my beanbag chair, a good jacket and we have a fire going. That it will be all I need for the night, so we drink some beers, having a really nice evening together and a new friendship is born. Around 2am they decide they had enough and they go to bed, I stack some more wood on the fire and open another cold beer. Watching the pond in the moonlight and enjoying the summer night stars, I finish a beer or two more and slowly drift’s off to sleep.

Early in the morning I somewhat woken up, I’m a bit disorientate and not sure what woke me up. I figure I need to sleep a bit more, but then I hear an odd noise from my rod pod. I figure id better go check it before I go to sleep again, maybe that was what woke me? I look over there and see the whole thing have tipped over, all the rods are in one big mess and one reel is letting out line. NOW I’m awake! I run over there and pick up the rod letting out line and give it a pull to set the hook. And a good fight has just started, my rod has a good bend and I’m working the fish in. But where is the net? The two guys I barely know is still sleeping, but I figured I can borrow there net no problem. No need to wake them from their sleep. I’ve set the hook and reeled in the fish as far that I know it have cleared whatever snags there might be, Right? I get the rod pod on its feed again and lay down my rod to go pick up the net. Right there I was about to learn my first rule of carp fishing, because when I got back to the rod with the net - there is no fish. §1 Always Keep you line tight with a carp on the hook.  §2 Always ALWAYS keep you lint tight with a carp on the hook.

There I stand with the early sun, shining down over the water and the first carp just spit the hook. Very disappointed! I cast out and sits down again, open’ a beer and stir up in the ash and relights the fire. Maybe an hour later my two new friends come out and I tell them I had a carp on the hook, they haven’t had a single bite all night and again looks at me like ‘This dude is not all there’ Until I told them how it was fighting and that I finally when it was close to the bank I had laid down my rod to look for the net, just to come back to find the fish was gone. And that I was 100% sure I had hooked a big fish, by then they both broke out in laughter, asking why I did not wake them up. Telling me that I should never, loosen the line or put down my rod with a carp on the line. That they will just spit the hook out! I’m sitting there feeling a bit stupid but again, I had a fish on the hook, had the pleasure of the fight. As we all know; in life we get some and we lose some, especially when it comes to fishing. After “we” stopped laughing at my beginner mistake, they told me how they had been on several overnight trips before they even hooked their first carp. At least that was a bit of a comfort, but it also fueled the addiction.

It wasn’t long before I was out there again, that time I was lucky enough to both hook and land a nice Carp!

I had also found out that I was not nearly done buying equipment; I still needed a landing net, unhooking mat, hooks, lead core, weights, safety clips, rig materials and loads of different baits. Lucky enough I had this ½drunk mate on the net, who often had told me how he was a big shot carp angler. I took him on his word and asked if he didn’t have a bit of old stuff he no longer used, he did and I took a drive to his place. Where I got a free Unhooking mat, 10 pounds of different fresh boilies and he showed me how to tie a few different rigs.

Since I have spend pretty much all the money I can spare on this addiction, luckily my family have yet to take me to an intervention.

If you read so far, give me a few more seconds of you time and leave me a comment! Thank you - Pali

Previous posts:

#1 A passion for fishing - My blog introduction