I have had one of the best carping weekends in a long time this last
weekend of July 10th. Three Danish college students on vacation here in
the States asked to fish with me at my River swim. Since my River swim is
185 miles long I said sure and gave them directions to a new swim we were
developing that had a nice beach for night fishing. After two days of
fishing there Bjarke, Morten and Mikkel were only catching low doubles
which surprised me to no end because the location I chose for them had some
nice deep water and apparently lots and lots of snags.
After seeing this was a little fish swim with the carp averaging only about
10 pounds I couldn’t well let them stay and fish for such little carp, fun
to catch yes, but not really for serious American vacation carping, so I
had them pack up and relocate. That’s not and easy job when you are
carrying everything you need for an extended stay. After checking out the
lay of the new swim Bjarke, Morten and Mikkel took turns with a scuba mask
and snorkel swimming across the whole river from side to side checking out
the bottom. If they couldn’t see the bottom two feet were stuck up through
the air and down they went into waters too deep for us to see the bottom
from a boat. I was very IMPRESSED the way they surveyed a new swim even
after I had told them all the things that I thought were there but turned
out to be figments of my imagination (maybe it flooded last year on the
Potomac?). As the guys swam around they would position markers they carried
with them while swimming to try to mark good lanes and structure. I have
them all memorized now and so I don’t have to go swimming!
The daytime was not good fishing, I lost what looked to be a near 20 and
that got everyone pumped up a bit (except for me). My brother Brett pulled
in a nice little double, his first carp this year and I followed with
another little double. Bjarke, Morten and Mikkel were getting worried this
might be another little 10 pound fish swim but I told them not to worry,
nighttime is a good time in the summer at this swim and all you need is
some sweetcorn and oatmeal.
I left and went home to my nice comfy bed while Bjarke, Morten and Mikkel
stayed by thier rods all night. At dawn I arrived to find some tired Danes
and failing to wake them up I found a nice fat juicy spider (a real BFS)
and gave it a nice warm home inside Mikkels sleeping bag. These guys can
sleep on rocks, boulder or logs no problem! Failing to noticeably wake
them up I set about setting up for the day, hoping they had caught. I set
out doughnuts and Surges for thier breakfast in case they ever awoke. As I
pounded in my banksticks into the hard ground I went to test Mortens bite
alarms and noticed some black bags in the water, they were moving gently,
they were stuffed with carp! Bjarke, Morten and Mikkel had scored well that
night. Bjarke had a 20 (new PB), Morten had two 20s (new PBs) and Mikkel
had a 20.
I was happy my guests had each gotten a 20+ and that three new PBs were
achieved, I was glad to get them started on the hunt for BFCs in America.
Bjarke, Morten and Mikkel carefully put each carp on thier unhooking mats
and we took a lot of pics and they gently released each fish as though it
were a world record carp.
I am happy to have shared my humble river swim with Bjarke, Morten and
Mikkel, to have gotten them hooked on Surges and to supply them with a few
new PBs, although I don’t think the 20 pound PBs will stand very long and
are soon to be broken. If these 3 show up at your swim invite them in,
feed them some doughnuts and Surges and they will swim around your fishing
hole and tell you what it really is like on the bottom. They also don’t
mind dragging out a big nasty limb like the one that caused me to loose my
big one the day before, and they will also give you back some of your
sinkers that they find on the bottom of your swim.
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