Blanking on the familiar

Fascinating but frustrating.
 Back in Britain, and fresh from catching freshwater bass and bluegills on lures, and sea skate and flounder on livebait in America, I decided on an evening's carp fishing as my re-introduction to English angling, on a water I plan to target seriously next year. A small lake of a couple of acres, although I'd perch fished it in the past, I'd never carp fished it before, and so the plan was to "get to know the water" and maybe tangle with the odd carp.

 

I decided on a swim with marginal features (reeds, tree roots etc.) on both sides, and fished PVA bags of boilies in mixed sizes and pellets, along with inline leads, and boilies as bait. On the left hand rod I used a fluorocarbon hooklink (my first mistake, more of which later), while on the right hand rod I opted for a braided hooklink. Lines were fished slack, and I sat down and waited, made up a few PVA bags and kept firing a steady stream of floaters out into the middle of the lake to see if I could get the carp competing on the top.

 

 

After a while carp started taking the floaters, although not voraciously, and so I wound in my rods, and took my floater rod to the corner of the lake where the floaters had blown, and tried on the top for an hour. The carp here have clearly been hammered on the top, and the hookbait was always the last to be explored, with carp "feeling" with their lips, approaching, touching the bait, but never taking it confidently. I was using an inline "bolt rig" controller with about a 6 foot tail of specialist floater line, but after an hour without a proper take I decided that the bottom fished margin baits probably represented my best chance. (mistake number 2)

 

Within minutes of recasting the margin rods, I had a screaming run on the left hand rod. A small gallery gathered round me as I played a reasonable fish (I caught sight of it several times, a "ghostie" that looked to be about 12 pounds), then after about 3 or 4 minutes, with the fish tiring, suddenly everything went horribly slack. I was using commercially purchased hooklinks (I'll refrain from naming the manufacturer, but if they let me down again I won't be as understanding!) and upon inspection it was them that had let me down. The fluorocarbon hadn't snapped at either the knot tying the main line to the swivel or the hook knot, but had just snapped half way along its length. I was less than sanguine, and while I gave a "some you win, some you lose" shrug to those watching, on the inside I was scowling! Losing a fish through "angler error" is one thing, losing it because a commercially made hooklink wasn't "up to the job" is quite another; I know what you're thinking: stop moaning and tie your own hooklinks, but my current commitments and stage of life don't afford me the luxury of that sort of time!

 

Mistake number 2 occurred when Ollie, an angler and friend from church, popped round to visit. I gave him my floater rod, told him he was welcome to try it but "not to expect anything, because they're not really having it with confidence on the top." Five minutes later, another man's carp was laying in my net, having been caught on my rod. Ollie went on to catch another (both small at about 5 pounds) off the top- these 2 were obviously acting to a less reticent script than their fellow carp who'd shown such caution. I ended up with a blank, but having lost and hooked a double, and seen 2 caught on floaters in just 4 hours there's plenty of encouragement as I look towards mounting a serious shot at the water as next summer's project.
 Now, it's off to "lick my wounds", and put in enough gardening hours to "buy" my next session.