Needless to say, it’s been a long cold winter and despite a few nice teaser days, it’s been a raw spring season here in the North East too. Waiting for the return of the larger striped bass fishery, we’ve focused our efforts on the states freshwater bodies for a rod bending fix and some exciting photography. Last Week Capt Jack and ECC Photographer Erich Medenbach Teamed up on the Wood River for some off the charts season opener trout fishing.
This week after having talked about it for over decade we finally decided to hunt for some elusive New England Mirror Carp. It’s no secret that targeting this fish takes and extremely technical approach with a lot of time dedicated to scouting and targeting. After a humbling search effort early in the week with Lou Aaron and Erich, Capt Jack decided to reach out to his good friend and N.E. Carp fishing Authority Dave Pickering.
The night before the trip, the weather took a turn for the worse with regard to Spring Carping conditions, but schedules being difficult to align as they are we decided to stay green lighted.
Met up with Dave around 9, packed up the gear and headed off to a few spots he scouted earlier in the week for us. Even with a bad ass like Dave in our corner, my expectations of seeing more than one of these fish by the end of the day were very low.
After just under a mile of trekking through the woods we reached our first spot. Erich and I began to set up our camera equipment and then got to work assisting Dave in a set up of some of the most fine-tuned, specialized angling systems I have ever seen. As gear-heads and spec junkies, Erich and I were stoked just to be part of this seemingly alien operation of high tech mounting systems and digital audio strike sensors ect. As impressive as the gear itself was the culinary pallet of specialized baits and chum attractants that Dave had prepared the night before. He gave us a quick over view of the gear and landing systems, a few pointers on fighting style and then he kicked back in his folding chair and said “Ok shouldn’t be long.”
Enthusiastic but skeptical, I was prepared for a long miserable soak in this fine example of New England Spring Cold front weather. So imagine my surprise a mere 10 minutes later when one of the rods started dumping as if it just got smashed by a Wahoo on the troll. To amplify the surge of adrenaline, the audible mayhem that the strike indicator emitted as the line peels off, is enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. I sprinted to the rod while there was still line on the reel and came tight. All I can say is what a bad ass fish for freshwater: Deep sounding, riding the current, Grey hounding, Bulldogs and even Tail walks. As the fish (probably around 12lbs) began to tire and came into the shallows, we were treated to another fascinating aspect of this unique fishery. “Real Dealers” like Dave use massive nets for cradling these juggernauts in place then you use the mesh of the net itself to safely lift the fish from the water. From there, the fish is placed onto its own special landing pad, specifically designed to support the fish’s weight out of the water and prevent it from damaging itself against the rocky shoreline when flipping around. Once on the pad, the hook is easily removed from the lip and then you can pick the fish up for a few snap shots before returning it to the water, and that we did.
Euphoric over the swift success, Erich and I shook Dave’s hand and began to admire the shots we just captured. Our celebration was cut short when yet another rod begins to dump with that spine tingling scream of the strike alarm. On again! I sprinted to the rod and again came tight, another great battle this time on a lighter rod, and we had another beautiful Mirror Carp in the net. This guy was a few pounds heavier. Snapped some shots and released the fish unharmed. We neatened everything up, re-rigged and had a sandwich. Just when it seemed like the day was about to slack up, B B B BBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR one of the rods strait DUMPED! With the line half way down river Erich ran over and came tight on a beauty in the high teens. This fish was really photogenic and had a cool more rounded shape to its head. As the fish came into the shallows I took the rod from E as he ran back to the pack and grabbed his cam for some sick in the water footage. I wrapped up the battle, Dave scooped up the fish, a few more shots and with that we decided to give this spot a rest.
As if our expectations weren’t already blown away, we were now heading to one of my buddy Dave’s “Sweet Spots” This time the trek was a bit longer and the terrain was much less forgiving. It was impossible to maintain our footing with all of the gear and we took a few spills along the way. “MY KIND OF FISHING LOL” So we get to this Lake, I’m pretty sure we walked through some kind of secret portal to get there, and once again repeat the pattern of effort.
Just as before, Dave didn’t disappoint, less than an hour into it, we had already landed another 3 fish and lost 2 more on the strike, simply didn’t get the hook. So if you’re counting so far, that’s 7 Carp in 6hrs, 5 landed. But we weren’t quite finished yet. After snapping some awesome shots of the 7th Encounter, one of the long rods begins to scream. E runs to it and comes tight for what would turn out to be the battle of the day, On a 10lb class set up this fish in the high teens, made him work for every inch of line gained, lots of drag dumping and aerial displays! To make things even more interesting, about a 30 seconds into Erich’s fight the rod next to him takes off! Dave pics up the rod and just like that we are doubled up. What a way to wrap up a sick day of Carp fishing. Both anglers land their fish, we shot a few fun tandem shots, released the fish and (Way ahead of schedule) called it a day!
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