Carp on the Fly - Part One

Cycled up to Jubilee with nothing more than my fly rod, tackle and bait, landing net and an inflatable unhooking mat for a short evening session for Carp. The point swim on the horseshoe lake was free and I decided to give it a go as I have caught from here before and it's fairly clear for a back cast, the wind, fairly strong for my casting, was also in my favour for this swim. I started feeding some biscuits and the Carp started to feed straight away so out went the biscuit fly. It wasn't long before I had a take and the first fish was on, it felt good but I had to put the brakes on as it tried to swim up the channel, all went slack!. I pulled the line in to find a single scale on the hook point, I think it may have been foul hooked.

After re-baiting I cast out once more with a fresh fly, I noticed that the Carp were now holding back just out of range, lucky I had the wind in my favour and put a long cast to the back of the drifting biscuits and it was taken straight away. Even small Carp fight really well on light gear and a good drag on the reel is very useful this fish made one very good run that took all the fly line off the reel and I was on my backing line. After a bit of a tussle I had Carp number one on the mat.

Looking back at the pictures it had strange lips that made it look like a dolphin!

(The Dolphin)

The swim was now quiet and the ducks were a bit of a nuisance stealing the biscuits, I had a quick look at a peg to the left of the point and put some biscuits in, one Carp took a few and I tried a cast, even though the wind had died to what it was earlier, it was in my face at this swim so I couldn't get the range I needed to reach the fish and abandoned the attempt. I carried on feeding the point swim and the Carp slowly reappeared, no waiting, out went a fly and again it was taken almost straight away, disaster struck, I had a loose loop of line hanging from the reel and as I released the line to the running carp the loop of line flipped up and over the rod and wrapped itself around the handle of the reel trapping my wrist against the rod. I kept pressure on the fish hoping it would kite around but the tippet parted company before I could free the line.

A lesson to learn from this one I think!!