First outing of the year.

 This year, I was excited to go carp fishing for the first time. However, my favourite peg was taken, so I settled on peg 23. I knew that the island, which was the hotspot for carp, was about 25 wraps away, and unfortunately, I only had my 9 ft 3.00 lb rods with me. While these are great rods for short-distance fishing, I knew I would have to cast farther for this particular spot.

After a few casts with a marker lead, I found some clean gravely areas around 20 wraps away and clipped there. It was a bit of a struggle to cast that far with the short rods and the side wind was not helpful, but most of my casts landed where they were supposed to. Once I chose my spot, I made a spod mix out of corn, some 10mm sweet boilies, a handful of micro pellets, and some crushed boilies for more flavour. I also added 2 scoops of zig mix to get a bit of cloud in the water, hoping to get the fish's attention faster.

I fished with 2 rods, one with a solid bag filled with micros and a yellow dumbbell wafer, and the second with a 2.5 ft zig rig with a 12 mm yellow pop-up trimmed around to look like a dumbbell. After about 1.5 hours, I had two consecutive bites on the zig rig, and I landed two lovely mirrors weighing around 12lbs each. Unfortunately, I then went through a quiet hour with no takes, but I didn't give up.

I decided to change the solid bag to a 16mm krill boilie, a bait that had worked well for me in the past on this lake. After just 5 minutes, the alarm started screaming, and I knew I had a bigger fish on the line. After a good battle, I finally landed a 21lb common carp, and I was more than pleased. The day continued with a 16 lb mirror and a couple more fish averaging 10 lbs.

  

Despite some challenges, my first carp fishing session was a great success. I learned that even with shorter rods, you can still cast fairly far and catch some fish with the right technique and bait. I can't wait to go again and see what else I can catch!