THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD (to the carp pool)…
By
Brid Caveney

I'm 66 years old, and was introduced to the fine art of carp fishing by my beloved Grandma at the tender age of 5 years old , just 6 years after Richard (Dick) Walker turned the carp fishing World upside down, with the capture of his 44lb fish, at a time when it was thought big carp were pretty much impossible to capture.

It seems visions of huge carp have haunted me since I was a wee kid, with the passion for fishing for them growing over the years - and to this very day still has a huge bearing on my daily thoughts. An obsession some may say --- and of course they may be correct - but what know they of the stirrings deep within the psyche, on seeing the bubble trail moving towards ones float in the pre-dawn 'half' light, or the tightness in the belly as that pair of huge orange lips gently suck the floating crust from the surface?

Getting back to the early days, my first rod was a 7ft 2 piece tank antenna with 'snake eyes' with an ancient Intrepid reel very similar to the one pictured below. If float fishing, we used home made quill floats - either porcupine or goose quills, and for ledgering my bite indicators were ping pong balls with a few small split shot in them, hung from the line by a piece of light wire. This was of course well before baitrunner reels, so if you didn't want your gear getting pulled into the water - you sat right next to your rod - and paid attention!!

Most of my gear as a lad was 'hand me downs' from older folks, who'd usually bought 'fancy' new stuff, which I'd ogle and ooh at -- swearing that once I'd saved up enough money (from pocket money and an early morning milk delivery round job) I'd have nice new stuff!
Well - by measures, I did buy new/better gear -- but I've never forgotten that most of my early learning was done with having to 'make do' and of having to be inventive to keep my gear usable.

Fast forward just 60 years - and of course, it's now a very different life. I have never stopped learning about fishing - and though I now have top notch gear -- have the fish changed as much as the World around them? I think not - though they are undoubtedly tired of folks bombarding them with method balls and boilies!!
This year, I fully intend getting back to basics more often, and have recently stocked up on some nice new hand built floats, and bought a new float rod and reel.

Call it what you will -- second childhood maybe -- only this time around, I won't be having to make do with any hand me downs - I'm ready for business!!

Being partially retired, I do get to fish almost as much as I'd like - and these days, rarely go out for less than 2 or 3 nights. Doing multi day sessions puts a completely different light on how I approach 'building' a swim, as in all honesty, I only fish for big fish these days - and being selective takes an awful lot of time.
On arriving at any water, I have often done a considerable amount of 'homework' online, and know roughly what to expect with the swim - at least with water depths.

I have a good quality sonar system mounted on my kayak - and a couple of ways of marking areas for baiting purposes, so once time has been spent searching for features, it's either the illuminated marker pole set up - or a H-Block - or sometimes I'll just cast a marker float out to the required spot - and leave it there -- winding it up and down as needed.
Baiting strategies vary from water to water, with water temps, time of year, water depths - and more often than not - the fish tell me what they need!!

Many of the waters I fish these days have some rather large Smallmouth Buffalo (Ictiobus Bubalus) - and though I don't specifically target them, it seems I do catch my fair share of them.
I have sort of 'made my peace' with buffs, after not being that fond of them for quite a while -- only made worse by getting nicknamed 'Big Buff Brid' -- after a winter/summer of catching nothing much but -- big buffs!!

I did actually spend some time researching their history, but there is precious little to be found, without digging deep! It may sound crazy to some - but there are waters we fish, where we don't even take a second glance at a 40lb class fish -- just unhook them in the net, and turn them back!!

That fits in well within the overall 'big picture’ of my fishing life these days though - where either a fish has to be close to breaking a PB - or have a neat 'back story' -- before it even gets its picture taken.

Remember I did earlier say - "I only fish for big fish these days". Well - I wasn't being boastful -- and if anyone raises an eyebrow to that statement -- I always hasten to add - " I didn't say I only catch big fish these days.”

Tight lines,
Brid