Good Evening.

It is 2.20am and I have just returned a carp. I have just put the hookbait back on top of the bar that I caught the fish from and I have a coffee by my side, the pictures are already on my laptop, and I can now write the post I was too tired to write earlier. A carp always brings some extra energy, and a welcome carp brings double that amount; so here is yesterday’s post today!!

I was up till late yesterday evening finishing off my Orient account. Six and a half thousand words later and after completing the picture captions it was finally sent off to the editor. Once again it felt good to finish another episode and there was also that sense of relief; you know….thank god that is out of the way again because I can now relax a little and enjoy the fishing more.

I made the decision today to leave all the rods where I placed them yesterday. I must admit I was surprised I had no action last night, but then you do have to ask the question sometimes? When fish are jumping all round the lake, are they feeding or are they playing? I have seen it before and Gigantica is a classic example of the fish giving you that false sense of security; jumping all over you and still you don’t get a take. I know it sometimes works the other way, but I do sometimes think we get it wrong with how the carp are behaving. I suppose to really know you need to be a carp or do a significant study on temperatures, weather conditions, variety of waters, stock levels, food levels, strains etc..before you could make any real scientific judgements.

It has been raining steadily since the early hours of yesterday morning. A couple of carp were seen jumping in front of me in open water at midday so I chucked a zig out for the afternoon. After lunch and a social visit from the owner, tiredness got the better of me and a good old afternoon nap was the order of the day. I woke just as it was getting dark, so I fed the dogs, wound in the zig rod and as there was no other rod work to do, a dose of TV was next on the agenda. I haven’t seen much TV as I mentioned the other day since leaving the UK and when you consider the choice available, I don’t think I am missing out on a great deal. However, the Simpsons is always good for a laugh and then there was Ray Mears in Antarctica building igloos. Two good choices I am sure you will agree and you never know? Igloo building may come in handy one day for myself. I also watched a depressing programme about kids from Mexico who try to get into the US on freight trains and you suddenly realise how fortunate we all are, however bad our lives might appear to be, compared to these poor souls. Most of them were young lads who simply wanted to earn money for their families and this only highlights what a sad problem the whole crisis is. Border controls apparently find 100,000 children trying to cross into the US from Mexico a year.

I heard a few fish bosh as I decided to call it a night and after a small burst of comedy from Jimmy Carr to finish the night off with a smile, my right hand rod beeped once. This is the rod I carefully placed on top of the shallow bar. I did this from my boat using my echo sounder. The receiver beeped one more time, so I went to inspect the rod and the tip was bending towards the drop position. I decided to go and play the fish from the boat and it was fantastic. I already made the decision I would play any carp I hooked from the boat because it just makes the experience all the better. The fish bored under the surface for a good ten minutes and I finally saw a flash of pale colour under the surface in the light of my red led head torch. Jim was certainly right about the condition of the fish and this one looked bulging from the seams. It really does look like the carp don’t need to eat to be honest!

My two 15mm pineapple plus pop ups were hanging from the corner of its mouth and the hookhold was firm. I slipped the fish into a weigh sling and after registering a weight of 35lbs I placed it in the water while I got my camera set up. With a remote control there is no reason to sack fish and when I am fishing at a water where there is a strict no sacking rule, I do respect the rules. Freezing cold weather is one time I might not attempt self takes in the dark, as the cold is not good for the fish. For example: earlier in the year at Cassien I caught a few carp in the early hours of the morning when the temperature was minus 7 and I sacked these fish till the morning to do the photos, which I believe for the purpose of a trophy shot, is healthier  for the fish, providing you obviously sack the fish as safely as possible. Obviously if you fish with a friend or someone is on hand then there are alternative options.

The photos were straightforward and the fish was returned immediately. I now wanted to get the rod back on the bar, so using the echo and boat, I rowed out and after a few minutes I located the feature using the landscape markers I had made a mental note of and also my echo sounder for accuracy. I am still confident with my other rods and I guess I will see in the next few hours whether they will trap another Blue Water Lakes carp or not.  I have already had a couple of liners on the rod I have put back out so I think I might just put the kettle on and stay up a while longer.

7.00am Update

After a couple of hours sleep I woke to two beeps on the rod I had earlier repositioned after the capture of the carp. I went down to see if the tip was bending and sure enough it was. My baitrunners are set rather tight which not only helps sets the hook for you, it also stops one note screamers coming from nowhere. You do still get them but, a few beeps will always warn you first.

Assuming it was my second carp of the night I jumped into the boat and wound down towards the fish. Occasionally something tugged from the other end and I still assumed a carp was responsible. Once over the creature, it suddenly pulled very hard and I saw something long and snake-like, slither past the boat. “Not a catfish,” I thought to myself? The fight suddenly got rather brutal for thirty seconds and once again, I saw a flash of colours in my head torch beam. “It’s the sturgeon!”

Jim put the sturgeon into the lake this year at a weight of approximately 50lbs so I knew I had at least a fifty pound sturgeon on the end of my hook. It was a strange fight really. Not as hard as I thought but pleasing all the same and just what you need to wake you from a drowsy two hours sleep. I eventually managed to fold and bend the odd-looking specimen into my net and he was mine!

Now I have never caught one of these fish before and to be honest with you they are not something I would actually target. No seriously! They have a mouth that is very similar to a ray, and as I took my Kurv from its tiny little mouth I was surprised by how soft and fleshy it was. It was quite difficult to handle, but I had already fetched another large unhooking mat before I took the fish and landing net from the side of the boat, so I was all prepared and ready to take care of Jim’s precious celebrity!

I managed to find a large weigh sling in my collection and after hoisting the whole lot off the ground, I was actually chuffed as the weight was over 25kg! Fifty six English pounds which is 25.4kg.  It is not a capture I shall be reporting to Echos or Carp-Talk and yes, I would have preferred it to be a carp, but at least I can now say I have caught a 25kg+ sturgeon and cross that one, off my list!!

Self-takes were interesting but I decided not to bother with taking pictures of both sides, so a few quick snaps and he was returned quickly to his home. I am not sure how long these creatures can survive out of the water, and after knowing what Jim paid for him, I didn’t want anything to happen to it.

I will leave you with this rather mixed bag of contents and see you all later!

Cheers

Jake and the dogs.

Tags: Blue Water Lakes, Gigantica, jake langley-hobbs, Orient, Ray Mears, Simpsons

This entry was posted on November 18, 2009 at 4:20 am and is filed under Blue Water Lakes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.