After those few trips hunting small species I
finally decided to focus on bigger fish. At the southeasterly Finland is one
small and really nice looking day-ticket water stocked with Carp.
We drove there with Viljami in the middle of
the last week of August. We started with ground baiting and loose feeding, set
our boilie rods out and started to fish with match rods baited with sweetcorn.
I had my first and only bite almost immediately and landed a nice Crucian carp
of 740 grams.
The rest of the evening and whole night were
quiet. When the darkness had moved off and we were able to see our floats again
we dropped our sweetcorns to the water. I had nothing happening at my swim but
Viljami had constant bubbling at his swim. He had several bites but it took few
hours until he finally hooked a fish. It was his first ever Carp. Not a massive
fish but a nice specimen of over three kilos. And about ten minutes later he
hooked another one a nice looking fully scaled mirror carp of bit over two
kilos.
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| Viljami is playing with his first ever Carp |
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| And here's his second fish. What a nice looking creature. |
We tried a while more and I even moved to
Viljami’s swim in a hope of Carp too. But nothing else happened. We headed back
home but on the way we decided that we will come back as soon as possible.
Viljami had been bitten by Carp fly and I was still missing my Carp of the
year.
About four weeks later we were there again.
This time we concentrated more to fish with boilies. The dam has a bit deeper
area and I had got some tips that the fish had moved there. We had our first
run about five minutes later we had casted our baits in. Well, this Carp was
smarter than we did and didn’t hooked itself.
Hours went by and we had the next run in the
total darkness at then thirty. I missed this fish too but about half an hour
later I woke up when two bite alarms were singing together. When I got to the
rods there was only one reel running so I hit it and the fight was on. When we
got the fish to the landing net was the other reel still giving some line out.
So, Viljami grabbed to the rod. First the line was stuck to somewhere but soon
it loosened and the fish was still on. We left the second Carp to the landing
net, weighed (it was a six kilos mirror), photographed and released my fish and
then made the same meneuvers to the other fish. Viljami’s third ever Carp
weighed 5,5 kilos.
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| First fish of the second trip. A nice six kilos mirror carp. |
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| Viljami with a 5,5 kilos Carp. |
Quite soon after we got back to the tent came
next run. It was my turn again but somehow I lost this fish as well. It felt a
good sized fish too. So, back to the tent again. I didn’t sleep at all because
everything was soaking wet and it was freezing cold out (and in a tent too)
there. At three o’clock at the morning was time again to dash to the rods. This
time I hooked the fish and after a short fight a really nice looking common
carp was lying at the landing net. It weighed a bit over seven kilos and was
released unharmed.
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| 7,14kg. |
Our last run came about two hours later. Now
it was Viljami’s turn but unfortynately he lost this very good sized fish (of
course all the big fish are getting away, always).
At the morning I still managed to hook and
land a nice little Carp of 3,2 kilos with a sweetcorn. This was one really
successful trip even it was raining all the time and at night there was freezing
cold. But the Carp were feeding though we had something wrong at our rigs. We
lost more fish that we could land, was it because too small hooks, too short
hair-rigs or what? It’s hard to say but something has to be changed for our
next trip after this magnificent species.
The mighty Carp was my species number 42 of
the year. Next there’s something totally different coming again…
