A First For Me

[Haris122]

I fished the Meramec from the shore Sunday evening for a few hours. Had two rods with some type of sweet corn carp bait out on the bottom, hoping I'd get something, drum, gar, catfish, whatever, but secretly hoping I'd finally hook a carp. Anyways, I had a few probing bites fairly early on, but nothing that committed and eventually it died down completely. The bait also kept falling off a bit too easy after just a few casts, so I kept on tinkering with stuff. Anyways, eventually I returned to the carp bait on trebles on the bottom.

Anyways shortly before I'm about to pack up, I'm attending to my medium rod, when the bell on the medium heavy one goes off. First I see the rod tip bend a few times, then it stays bent, and just keeps on bending further and further down, until I'm thinking it will outright snap. I'm wondering just how huge a fish I got on, right as I run towards it to start fighting it. All of a sudden the rod holder gets pulled out of the gravel, and the rod simultaneously falls out of the holder, and slingshots into the water. I spend a second wondering what to do, until I decide to just go for it and run into the water after it. Just in case whatever got hooked hasn't dragged it halfway to the other bank of the river. After feeling around in the shallows for a few seconds, to my surprise I find the rod still near the shore, pick it up, and start reeling. Several minutes of back and forth later, the fish finally goes into shallow water and I pull it in the rest of the way. To my surprise what do I have? A common carp, just slightly over 2 feet. Now don't get me wrong, for me it was a hell of a fish.Certainly one of my biggest, and I'm certain it was the heaviest I've ever caught. Even though it was just over 2 feet, it was one wide stocky fish, but man I'll be honest, I almost didn't know if I wanted to reel it in at first, cause for a while I thought it had to be at least a 50 pound cat if not something bigger, easily capable of pulling me into the Meramec at night, the way that rod bent. I'll see about posting a few pictures from my phone later on.

Man that was an awesome experience.

[marcusearlt]

Man that's awesome! Hey, you never know what's going to bite, anything can happen. Cool story, congrats.

[gramps50]

Carp are good fighters for their size. They are fun to catch. Every once in a while I'll spend the evening trying to catch one just for the fun of the fight. Congrats one the big one...

[Justin92297]

Awesome story and fish! You should try mallard lake. There are so many carp and buffalo too in that lake.

[Hog Wally]

I was on a gravel bar downstream from red horse Sunday where a guy was tearing the carp up on little worms with small hooks

[Al Agnew]

Carp are notorious for jerking rods into the water. I had it happen to me several times during the days when I messed around with them. I used to use spincast reels for carp fishing, and on the old Zebco 33 you could set it so that the handle turned backwards if a fish was taking out line. We'd fish at night for catfish, and always had a rod baited with canned corn for carp. I don't know how many times I hear a splash and see my carp rod, which had been propped on a forked stick lying in the water with only the reel out of the water and those reel handles turning backward.

[Haris122]

Yeah, in all honesty I thought searching for the rod 10 or so feet from shore was going to be a lost cause. The way that thing took off, reminded me of something from Wicked Tuna. That will teach me about setting the drag too tight, when I don't know what might wind up on the other end of the line. Anyways let me see about getting the pictures I promised.

[Geoff]

nice fish!! I love carp, they are probably one my favorite fish to catch on a fly rod. I just need to find better pockets of them and start looking in the bigger rivers for them.

[Smalliebigs]

Sweet report Haris......love it!!!!! Carp are some very good fighting fish IMO.....I just wish I would take the time sometime to go catch a few.

Thanks for the read