Turds With Fins
June 4, 2000
A while back, I received a letter from a carp fishing group that wanted me to go fishing with them and do a story. I resisted at first, but was finally convinced to go out fishing for, er, carp. Very interesting…
The chap who invited me was a transplanted Englishman who was a carp fishing fanatic. Wait a second, a carp fishing fanatic? Well, let me back up here. In Great Britain, most salmon and trout fishing takes place on private waters and is reserved for the upper crust. Over there, if you’re not in with Prince Chuck, and can’t afford $3,000 per day to fish, forget it. By the way, if you can afford that much to fish, I’m currently booking guided trips for anything you want to catch, baby! Anyhow, back to my story.
Since the common folk can’t come up with the cash to go salmon fishing, most have resorted to pursuing species available in the publicly accessible waters: namely, carp and other assorted uglies. In fact, the sport is so popular that English carp have become…this hurts for me to say…smart. My carp fishing acquaintance said that catch-and-release is often practiced in the UK, and on the popular waters, many of the carp have been caught several times — thus becoming educated to the ways of anglers. To that end, carp enthusiasts have developed some crazy techniques for catching those “wily” fish and that’s what my carpy friend wanted to show me. I told him, however, that I was certain the carp here in the States are not “smart” carp (oxymoron?) since the ones that get caught only get caught once and then are punted unceremoniously into the bushes. He muttered something about horrific treatment for a magnificent sportfish…yea, whatever!
Of Kernals & Carp
So there we were, peeking over the edge of a pond, looking down at a big school of carp in the 10- to 20-pound range. I had come on this jaunt very reluctantly, but I figured, since I was there, I’d make the most of the situation and have a little fun. Pulling on a couple of big fish never sucks, regardless of the species. I just promised myself I would close my eyes when I got one of those hideous turds with fins close to the bank. Unfortunately, my carp master gave me a 45-minute dissertation on the use of float “don’t call them bobbers” fishing for carp before we could even wet a line. Needless to say, my enthusiasm had long since waned by the time we actually got to fish. After being shown his immense collection of handmade porcupine quill bobbers…um…floats, the carp man finally pulled a bag of bait out of his pack. Corn. Of course. Before we could cast, though, we had to do a little chumming. He broke out — I kid you not — a slingshot designed expressly for shooting corn out into the water, loaded it up and let some kernels fly…the only problem was the corn hit the water not 8 feet from our position.
“Dude, I could spit corn farther than that,” I told him, but he assured me that I wouldn’t be able to attain the desired “scatter pattern” that draws the carp in. Okay. Sure. You’re the master here, I am just the lowly carper’s apprentice…I’ll try to keep quiet.
Secret Sauce
After the proper corn formation had been laid out, Senior Carp busted out a Zip-Loc bag of some wet, gooey substance that looked a lot like what I’d imagine boiled sheep guts to look like. He then opened the bag, handed it over and instructed me to sniff the contents.
Yea, okay, and then I’ll poke my eyes out with a fillet knife. Not a chance.
It turns out that the secret bait was just white bread mixed with a maple-like substance. He showed me a small vile that the maple stuff came in and said that he had to import it from England at a cost of about $60 per bottle. I told him he should save a few bucks and just go to Lucky’s and buy some maple extract, but he assured me that his magic sauce was much more potent. And, of course, the carp can tell the difference!
The Great Cast-Off
When we were finally baited up with the marinated bread balls, Capt. Carp made a cast with his old, rickety rod and single-action reel. Envision trying to cast an ounce of bobber, weight and bait with a fly reel and you get the idea. Of course, his bait hit the water not a rod’s length away. I then reared back with my spinning rod and launched my rig into the heavens…
ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGGG….Plop. My bobber feel back to earth about 150 feet away. “Much too far,” my compatriot said matter-of-factly. Too far, maybe for the corn spread, but not too far for the fish, and I was into a carp in short order. And then another. And another. All the while, my host went fishless.
Epilogue
So, I actually had fun catching a few carp. I’m glad I did it, but they’ll never take the place of trout or salmon or anything like that for me. It did make me realize, however, that were are extremely blessed to live where we do. Think about it, we have tons of free-to-fish public water here that harbors several varieties of grand gamefish…and we don’t even need to buy those expensive corn shooters to catch them.
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