Holy Carp, it's my backing!

[Jeffrey Silvan]

I spent the weekend fishing up at the canal every day... like usual. I got really dialed in this past weekend. Yesterday, I started exploring a few of the trails down to the main stem of the Potomac which was fun too. I didn't have wading gear, but found some awesome looking areas to hit smallies, and still managed to catch a couple small guys from the shore. I also played in the little "pond" formed by what I believe is Minehaha Branch just to see what's in it. (Hint: sunfish, and I saw a few bass including one that's pushing 6 lbs, and a koi). 

At the end of the day, I decided to poke back down to the Potomac for a minute to look for carp, even though the water was pretty stained from Saturday's rain. Of course, I still couldn't see much of anything with only about 1-2' of visibility. But then I noticed my favorite thing to see - some puffs of silt. I tied on my biggest carp tickler and just waited and watched. After 5 or so minutes of watching, I finally saw the tail poke through the silt and could tell it was a big boy. I dropped my fly just outside the edge of the silt in the shallower water to help me see the fly better. 

As I hoped, the carp saw the tickler, came out of his silt cloak, and gulped the fly. I set the hook, and it got MAD and started running. And kept running. And ran some more. I was into my backing - the first time I've ever had a freshwater fish do that, and he came off about a 10 foot cast. I've only had four fish ever make a run better than that carp's even on spinning gear: a marlin, a sailfish, a bluefin tuna, and a tarpon for the 90 seconds I had him hooked. I finally got some line back on the reel, but he wasn't giving up. It took me about 10 minutes to subdue the beast. I actually feel a bit lucky that I did, because I know how many rocks jut up in that area, and the water was too cloudy to see any of them to try to keep him away. It was lots of keeping a high rod tip to make sure he stayed clear. Of course, my GoPro was long dead. It would've been a great one to have on film.

I apologize ahead of time for the pictures of the carp lying on the ground. I usually try to avoid putting a fish on the ground, but he was just too big for me to hold up with one arm and photograph with the other. To put the size in perspective, my net is 26" overall in length. I also threw in a couple pictures from the weekend that some nice passer-byers offered to take and send to me as they watched me land the fish.

[Ryan DiAndrea]

Great looking Carp. I probably should get a net here at some point. Might make life easier.

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[TurbineBlade]

Great story and fish!  

The DDOE fisheries guys handle large (shocked) carp by placing their thumbs into the eye sockets of the fish as "handles" -- not that I'm suggesting people do it, but it provides for the fact that they're very, very hardy fish and likely suffer few issues from being placed onto the ground.  The fish would probably prefer "grounding" to the broadheads people routinely put through them where it's legal to do so.  

Those are the perfect "hot" sized carp in my experience -- the medium ones seem to provide the best fight to us, but I'll take any carp I can get ;).  

You seem to have figured out a good approach to getting them consistently and you have my respect!  

Gene

On Monday, August 25, 2014 8:55:19 AM UTC-4, Ryan D wrote:

Great looking Carp. I probably should get a net here at some point. Might make life easier.

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 8:33 AM, Jeffrey Silvan <jeffre...@gmail.com> wrote:

I spent the weekend fishing up at the canal every day... like usual. I got really dialed in this past weekend. Yesterday, I started exploring a few of the trails down to the main stem of the Potomac which was fun too. I didn't have wading gear, but found some awesome looking areas to hit smallies, and still managed to catch a couple small guys from the shore. I also played in the little "pond" formed by what I believe is Minehaha Branch just to see what's in it. (Hint: sunfish, and I saw a few bass including one that's pushing 6 lbs, and a koi). 

At the end of the day, I decided to poke back down to the Potomac for a minute to look for carp, even though the water was pretty stained from Saturday's rain. Of course, I still couldn't see much of anything with only about 1-2' of visibility. But then I noticed my favorite thing to see - some puffs of silt. I tied on my biggest carp tickler and just waited and watched. After 5 or so minutes of watching, I finally saw the tail poke through the silt and could tell it was a big boy. I dropped my fly just outside the edge of the silt in the shallower water to help me see the fly better. 

As I hoped, the carp saw the tickler, came out of his silt cloak, and gulped the fly. I set the hook, and it got MAD and started running. And kept running. And ran some more. I was into my backing - the first time I've ever had a freshwater fish do that, and he came off about a 10 foot cast. I've only had four fish ever make a run better than that carp's even on spinning gear: a marlin, a sailfish, a bluefin tuna, and a tarpon for the 90 seconds I had him hooked. I finally got some line back on the reel, but he wasn't giving up. It took me about 10 minutes to subdue the beast. I actually feel a bit lucky that I did, because I know how many rocks jut up in that area, and the water was too cloudy to see any of them to try to keep him away. It was lots of keeping a high rod tip to make sure he stayed clear. Of course, my GoPro was long dead. It would've been a great one to have on film.

I apologize ahead of time for the pictures of the carp lying on the ground. I usually try to avoid putting a fish on the ground, but he was just too big for me to hold up with one arm and photograph with the other. To put the size in perspective, my net is 26" overall in length. I also threw in a couple pictures from the weekend that some nice passer-byers offered to take and send to me as they watched me land the fish.

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[Matt Geiman]

Your posts are inspiring me to do more carp fishing! Thanks for the great posts!