I’ve experienced some epic battles in my many years of obsessive fishing—I’ve probably lost a few more than I’ve won. But if you told me before last week that one of the wildest all-time would come at the hands of a carp, I would’ve called you crazy.
If you read my editor’s log from last week, then you know it’s ‘berry season’ and the other day I was walking along and tossing my custom-made berry ‘plugs’ at every carp I spotted – the bite was very slow. When I arrived at one of the best trees, the place was on fire, multiple carp bellied up in inches of water competitively rushing to each berry that plopped into the water. My first cast was crushed, but the fish popped off almost immediately. My next cast was eaten instantaneously, but that fish also came loose!
The commotion of two freaked out fish had settled the surface action down to nothing so I stood and watched until they started back up. I watched until I could identify an area where they were consistently feeding and flicked my wooden berry into that spot. A set of orangey-pink lips emerged from the water and sucked the berry down, I set the hook and mayhem ensued.
The fish took off to my right, ripping drag. I tightened the drag twice but the fish kept going. I lifted my rod high to clear a 30-foot, sun bleached tree limb that had fallen across the river and she continued to run. I finally stopped the fish and had her coming back, when she made a beeline for the tangle of branches and buried her head in it. My line was see-sawing over the main trunk of the limb, making that awful ‘broken violin’ screeching sound as we battled back and forth. My 20-pound Super Slick and 10-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid leader were being put to the test!
We fought it out over the limb for about five minutes before I decided that I needed to try and make a play for this fish. I was in shorts and flip-flops, I flung my wallet and phone on the bank and took a few steps out into the water. To my surprise, the bottom was hard-packed gravel, but five more steps and it turned into that stinky chocolate pudding mud that feels like it might swallow you whole. Up to my ribs in water I had to retreat to more solid footing, in the process my line had slid along the branch and wedged itself into a splintering crack in the wood. Each time I put pressure on the fish she would come to the surface, but the line would not come free! Then she swam to the right and really buried it deep in the wood.
I gave in to breaking the line and as I pulled back with the rod pointed at the fish the braid creaked through the crack, so I started popping the tip and, as if by some miracle, the whole piece of wood cracked off and fell into the water. The fish was in between two ‘legs’ of the branch and as I guided her along my line caught on stumpy broken branch that was hidden from my view. I sidestepped to the closest end of the large branch and attempted to ‘balance beam’ my way out to the snag to try and free my line. I made three walking attempts on this rotten tree limb, but fell off each time as my weight pushed it down into the murky water. The last fall plunged my foot so deep into that disgusting mud that I can’t believe I got my flip-flop back!
I thought back to a time when I watched my carp fishing mentor, Rowan Lytle, navigate a fish out of a very similar situation on the fly rod. He basically roll-casted his line off of the snag. With braid this would be tougher, but after about 10 tries, I was able to guide a loop of line around this little stumpy branch and freed the fish!
With no time to waste I guided the fish into the crotch of the two large appendages of this branch and wondered if I had the line strength left, after all that sawing, to pull it – high and dry – over the wood. She slid over and came right to me. This fish was probably a bit over 8 pounds, by no means an impressive carp. But the battle will be one that I doubt I will ever forget. If that sequence were to happen 100 more times, I’m certain I would lose each time. Soaked from my toes to the top of my right shoulder, this time, I won.
And I can’t wait to go back there again after work today!
