No fluke!  But “Yes” to a bullhead and two carp!

After work and picking up the obligatory Friday night Baconator from Wendy’s for my son Samuel (Our family has a custom of fast food on Friday nights, but my wife and daughter were eating elsewhere and I’m trying not to eat at fast food restaurants anymore in the interest of lowering my fat and triglyceride intake.), it was 7 PM—just enough time for a quick evening session in the neighborhood lake.

I quickly found myself perched in my favorite spot of late—a little point where I’ve caught both channel cats and carp of late.  The first order of business was to bait up a bit while getting rigged up.  I threw out a half-dozen handfuls of floating trout chow to my right in order to hopefully attract and hold turtles.  After doing that, I threw three generous handfuls of prepped (soaked and boiled) deer corn about 20’ off shore to hopefully attract some finny denizens.  I thought I remembered that my rig, after my earlier-in-the-week’s fishing, was somewhat twisted.  Checking it more closely, it was indeed twisted and had several nicked places in the monofilament, so I cut back a good 3’ or so and re-rigged with a loaded puddle chucker (clear plastic, weighted waggler float) about 4’ above a small split shot pinched onto the line about 1” from the hook, with a #10 (small) Korda Krank hook baited with the same kernel of plastic Evolution Carp Tackle corn I’d caught on earlier in the week.  Of course in the few minutes it took me to get re-rigged, the hard-shelled folk had shown up in numbers (a good half-dozen to dozen) and required continual feeding in order to keep them away from my planned fishing spot.

It didn’t take but a minute or so after the first cast to get an immediate take.  Set the hook and felt the fight of a fish, but not a carp.  After a brief tussle, I landed a small (3/4 lb.) bullhead (small catfish), unhooked it, and quickly released it.

I didn’t have to wait too long after the next cast before my float started moving off again—this time I tightened into a nice carp and the battle was joined—that is, until the hook pulled after a minute or so!  Fiddlesticks!  Thereupon I checked my hook to see if it was still good and sharp, and it was, so I re-cast and waited and watched again.

In a few minutes I had another take, but this one turned out to be a turtle, which, fortunately for me, managed to come unhooked before I got it to shore.

By this time, it was getting dark enough that I had to rubber band a small (2”) glow stick to my float to be able to see it adequately.  After a quick re-cast, I didn’t have to wait but about five minutes for another take.  This time I tightened into a heavy-feeling fish, which took off on a nice first run.  The back-and-forth battle took a good five minutes, but eventually a beautiful almost-four-pounder found its way into my waiting net.  A quick unhooking and picture were followed by a quick release.

As with the others, my next cast was pretty quickly rewarded with another take.  As with the previous fish, this one fought well, swimming from side to side and running often before finally tiring and succumbing to the net.  This one was, once again, securely hooked.  Another quick pic and an equally quick release.

On my next cast, I told myself that I could be content with one more carp, then call it a night, but it wasn’t to be.  After casting, when I tried to reel in to sink my line (This is done to keep the wind and waves from bowing the line and pulling the float out of the desired position.), I could not.  I looked down at my reel to discover a pretty colossal tangle.  It quickly became obvious that this bird’s nest was not going to be untangled without cutting the line.  So I reluctantly pulled in my float and rig by hand, set them aside on the grass nearby, then proceeded to cut out the aforementioned tangulation!  At this point I decided it was time to go in.  I am contemplating an early morning session tomorrow morning, so cutting my losses (pun intended) seemed prudent, if a bit disappointing.  Salvaged all my rig components, put all away by the light of my head torch, and walked the 100 yards back to my back gate.

For me, this was certainly one of the better ways to spend a summer’s Friday evening after a work week.  Apparently catching carp (and even bullheads) on these artificials was no fluke after all.  Confidence is continuing to build!