Late summer carping

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.

Viljami is playing with his first ever Carp

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.

First fish of the second trip. A nice six kilos mirror carp.

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.

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…