Carp Letter from America - April

Andy’s second of two and our third of three.

It’s been a long winter here in north-east USA. We entertained the polar vortex for a while (-15 degrees) before moving on to the delights of the Siberian express (-20 degrees). In between we huddled under lake effect snow (only -10 degrees). Whatever their names they were all uniformly cold - ball breaking, hypothermia inducing cold. Naturally Andy had to suggest we go ice fishing. He was undoubtedly drunk and surely lead astray by a devilish American who made the suggestion at the impromptu party Andy was throwing to celebrate the acquisition of a bargain priced keg of beer. Luckily, just as we were becoming resigned to the fact that we would have to actually commit ice fishing, Andy came to whatever sense ingested substances had left him, slipped on his laminate flooring and, in a valiant act of self-harm, did himself an injury. We don't know how many broken ribs resulted as Andy was in no great hurry to further swell the local radiographer's retirement plan. Still this homegrown version of Jackass got us off the icy hook.

As Andy's ribs knitted the warmer weather finally arrived. Spring doesn’t so much emerge here as fall with a leaden thump. One day you’re driving back from the supermarket and the trees on the hill are winter bare, the shady hollows still clad with the last vestiges of snow. The next day (or so it seems) making the same journey home, the hill is green with new leaves, the sun is shining warmly down and the birds are shagging each other unmercifully in every nook and cranny.

Spring may have sprung but that water is still as cold and lifeless as a dead man's nose.

But, though spring may have sprung the rivers and lakes, having spent four or five months under ice, take a bit more warming before things get moving. During this short period we have to narrow down the best water to concentrate on from the plethora available. As we’ve said before, locating waters with carp is easy. They’re bloody everywhere. What is more difficult to determine is which of these waters holds the big guys and gals. You might think we should know this already having been in the country for a number of years. We don’t know this already because Andy was half way up the Hindu Kush wearing only flip-flops and a skull cap until last season and Simon was throwing feather covered hooks at trout (very, very small trout) and not paying any real attention to proper fish. We are left trying to assimilate what is most likely ten years dedicated research and water-boarding the locals for information, into a month’s blue-arseing around trying to make up for lost time.

So we visit our waters, noting ice in the river bays and on some lakes. We also assail the few bank anglers for information. From one we get a typical response: “Carp?” He looks at us blankly and then calls across to his severely rotund buddy “Hey Red, these Aussies want to know about carp for chrissake.” Turning back to us he sums up the wider attitude. “Listen fella, who the fuck cares about carp?”

Questioning anglers is not all a loss though and we got good pointers from a contact who lives on the river that produced the fifty pound State record. Suitably motivated we dust off our tackle boxes to prepare for the coming onslaught.

And we do our dusting in much better order than we did last season. Last month we may have mentioned - a little petulantly perhaps - that the range of tackle to be found in local shops is, shall we say, wanting? As has been pointed out on CARPology’s Facebook page there are online sites in the U.S. that will provide the necessaries. We’ve invested in buzzers and various odds and sods of tackle from one called ‘Big Carp Tackle’ , an excellent place that supplies all sorts of recognisable carp gear and has a quick delivery service. But that said, if you actually wander into your local shop - which more often than not will be the cavernous warehouse of a chain like Dick’s or the ubiquitous Walmart - the chances of being able to replace quality hooks, leads, beads, etc. that you notice you’re getting dangerously low on the night before an outing, are as likely as turning up at Andy’s place one evening and finding him without a beer in his hand.

The pickings of our local tackle shop or a sample of Fox’s care package. Well, which would you choose?

Luckily for us those kind folk from Fox sent what can only be described as a care package to get us going. No longer will we have to discard nineteen out of twenty hooks, wonder how to create a bolt rig with a lead designed by Ned the Neanderthal and generally cobble together some form of functional, reliable end rig. Now we have the basic materials to put together enough rigs to last a while. Andy has anyway. Simon will undoubtedly divest himself of his share of the booty within a couple of weeks by festooning the local trees with his God-like casting. He’ll just steal from Andy afterwards anyway.

Tooled up, as it were, we tested the water by trying a day session on the local river. We figured a four-foot deep, two-acre bay formed by an old and decrepit dam, should provide proof that fish were on the move. The water wasn't remotely fooled by our optimism. The bay was full not with the tepid water of spring but with snowmelt.

We blanked.

Undeterred we made a sortie to what has become for us, The Lake – a 1,600 acre place we scraped the surface of last year and where we’ve seen huge commons hauling their great bulk out of the water.

We blanked.

So it appeared everything was still too cold and when we held lit cigarette ends to the locals’ feet they admitted that the spring had been unusually frigid: “The Crappie bite is two weeks late!” they said.

This, we should point out, is not a comment on the fecal quality of the fishing, but to do with one of the most popular fish around here - the Crappie. A bass like, perch like, bluegill like …… fish. It’s much prized for some, presumably culinary, reason particularly by a gang of old codgers who regularly fish the marina of The Lake and from whom we have extracted much of our (likely dubious) information.

Undaunted, mainly because the result wasn’t unexpected, we returned a week or so later to the local river but a little further upstream at a swim we have had great success last year. We fished with a range of corn/crumb-packed home-made cage feeders, method feeders and PVA bags all terminating in long hairs bearing four kernels of corn on line-aligned SSSP hooks tied to Camotex soft braid. This is our simple, standard set-up for most of our fishing, something that has suited our needs to date but may require reassessing under more demanding conditions in future months. Andy's first cast yielded a stocky, golden, seven pounder and by the end of our short session we’d had thirteen runs resulting in twelve similar-sized fish. The singular loss occurred when Andy confidently picked-up his only non-baitrunnered reel, forgot that it was a non-baitrunnered reel and so found himself with a predictable tangle and lost fish. Strangely for this stretch of the river, none of the fish made the teens and only three exceeded ten pounds.

Andy thanks his first fish of the season. Small but perfectly formed. No, the carp - the carp is small but perfectly formed.

Despite the lack of bigger fish we were at least up and running. Clearly this meant it was time to revisit The Lake. Simon nipped back mid-week to do some scouting in the kayak and led by our aged informants found a swim that gave access to the entrance of one of the long narrow arms of the lake, an arm that we had seen very large fish cavorting in last year. This foray coincided with the flick of a switch at April’s end and the mercury soared into the high twenties. Surely the fish would now be moving? We went for a two-day session. No camping was allowed, that being confined to the official camp site in the State park, so we simply hung a couple of hammocks in-situ and decided to fish until we dropped.

We’d set up by early afternoon with the usual rigs fished over beds of corn and crumb. Eight hours in and still the “lunkers” hadn’t shown, anywhere. Were we still too early? Surely not. The water was noticeably warmer and the air was distinctly balmy. But no fish were moving. A crimson sunset heralded dusk and with it the bass boats began to depart and the frogs initiated their chorus. And then a majestic splash to our left jolted us from our reveries. This was followed by another mighty leap towards the far bank and then a further, out of sight, deep into our arm of the lake. As darkness deepened the bite alarms glowed into eerie green life. A great horned owl's lengthy hoots travelled clear across the water. A little later as Andy was savouring another Hop Devil his left-hand rod let off a series of bleats. A run at last and with a bit of fumbling between rod, reel and beer bottle, it was on. These fish have likely never been hooked before and they take the indignity extremely personally: shit, they can pull. Andy eventually steered the carp to shore and then Simon was lifting out our first lake fish of the year, a pristine eighteen pounder.

The lake season was off to a great start with Andy’s early-hours eighteen pounder.

Suspecting an onslaught we re-baited the swims and sat poised by our rods. Although distant crashes continued, our buzzers remained obstinately silent and the hours ticked by. Around 3 a.m. Simon decided to grab some sleep and retired to his hammock. An hour later Andy was in again and Simon rose to land a stocky twelve-pound fish whose belligerence bellied its size.

As dawn threatened Simon finally had his first run. The fish danced through all three of Andy’s lines and eventually proved to be Simon’s first twenty and our first from The Lake. Almost immediately Andy connected with another strong fish that turned into another twenty just a shade heavier than Simon’s. A joint photo taken via a ten second countdown with camera perched on a chair wasn't easy but did the job of recording the double for posterity.

Two twenties in a row had Simon smiling at the novelty of it all. Andy was simply wondering when the thirty would come.

Andy had a drop back shortly afterwards which he missed (note to Andy: we must invest in monkey runners. Also put the beer down before picking up the rod) and then activity slowed as the sun climbed. Just as we thought that might be it until the next evening Simon’s right hand buzzer sounded. Through some magnificent ineptitude involving a low brain cell count and an over-tightened drag, Simon managed a long distance release. Andy meanwhile was also attached to a fish, his buzzer having sounded at exactly the same time as Simon’s. This carp turned out to be another chunky twenty, the third twenty on the bounce, this time a shade under 22lb.

Andy and the third twenty on a bright morning.

And then it did go quiet, for a long time. Though our anticipation and adrenaline climbed as the second evening neared, the temperature fell and the surface activity decreased as a cold night set in. Andy snaffled another lovely eighteen pounder and Simon a stout twelve but then activity did not build up in the way we had hoped. It was something of an anticlimax for two extremely tired carp anglers driving away the following morning. We felt we had missed out somehow after the excitement of the night before. But sanity was soon restored. Three twenties in a row, two big doubles and another two fit and feisty doubles was nothing to be sniffed at especially as this was our first overnight session. Clearly The Lake had the quality of fish we were seeking and we would soon be back.

So ended April. Carp fishing in America can be easy. It’s fun and relatively straightforward to bank twenty fish into low doubles in a day session, as we well know from last season. But we also know there are other very big fish out there and our sights are increasingly focused on them, fish in the upper twenties and those, oh so elusive, wild thirties. Our two-day session at The Lake left us with a lot of questions. Fish location of course, but also more general queries on the effectiveness of different kinds of baits, the most efficient rigs and the best overall tactics to use. Just how do you make wild fish, fish who may never have seen an angler’s bait, stop and feed on your unnatural baits for long enough to find your carefully laid trap? There’s plenty to keep us occupied in the coming months and plenty to fill up more of our Carp Letter from America.