The First 20+ Pound Carp of the Year

This evening seemed the perfect kind for carping. I rigged up the 5 wgt for what is likes to be one of it's last use on a pond with big carp for a while; they are warmed up and honestly a 10 ft 5 weight is just a little too light for a hard fighting fish in the 30 pound range, and I don't want to loose a rod or a big fish like that. Any way when I got to the spot today I new withing seconds that it was going to be a special evening. There are a couple of times when all of the carp in the pond come into the flat to feed, and when the feeder stream is swollen it is often hard to even spook the fish off the flat. They just come right back and keep eating. And yet I was having a really hard time getting a carp to eat my flies. I hooked one that came off, the caught a perch. I even walked up the creek a bit and sure enough there were fish there too. And yet I kept getting the cold shoulder.

I decided on a whim to downsize tippet. I put on a generic carp fly and 4x and sure enough the first fish I put that fly in front of snarfed it. I set the hook and the fish went nuts, charging out into the middle of the pond with me following. It got a little ways into the backing before I turned it. I got it to come into shallow water, and that is when I took this set of photos. You may not be able to see it but there is another fish following mine, a common occurrence when fighting a carp.

 I thought at that point I had the fish whooped. I brought it around through the current and onto the sand bar. It felt bottom on its stomach and didn't like it. Keep in mind that at this point I still thought I was dealing with an average sized fish. When that fish felt bottom it went ballistic. I have caught a great deal of carp, and I have never seen one dump line like this one did. It got into the backing and just kept right on going. I stopped it about 150 yards into the run. It had gone like 15 miles per hour for a little while! If I had ran towards it it still would have been taking line. It took me about 10 minutes to get it back. After some messing around and chasing it through the rocks I got a really good look at it a realized what I had on. It was a true giant. For trout the yardstick by which a big fish is measured is the 20 inch mark. For carp it's 20 lbs. This fish was clearly over that, with 35 inches of length and girth to spare. I think it is safe to say that this is in my top 4 biggest fish, definitely the nicest carp I have ever caught. The 35 pounder I caught last year was just obese, this fish was well proportioned and in excellent condition, not a scale missing on her. You could not ask for a more perfect specimen.

I rounded out the day with some nice white perch and a solid pickerel. I could not have asked for a more awesome evening on the pond. I'll be remembering this one for a while!