Well, I had a little extra time today, so I went down to the lake, with a couple of hooks and a bag of frozen corn. It was me and another guy way at the end of the dock, that was it. I started fishing straight off just letting the corn to the bottom.

I settled down for the long wait, but didn't have to wait as long as I thought. Before long, just as I was getting comfortable, my lie starts to wander. I set the hook and BAM fish on and he's freaking out.

I was using my Loomis 6-10 steelhead rod, which made the fight a lot more fun, and it's length worked to help tire the fish out. He zoomed up and down and tried to get under the dock, I had to stop him gently, because it's more important to not break my rod than to get in a fish. So he's in charge. As it turns out he's pretty darn big, and my plan to lean over the edge and get him by the gill isn't working out. So I'm trying to tire him out, and the only other guy on the dock is down at the end, so I play the fish down there to see if he's got a net. Turns out he doesn't so we get yhe fish to one of the ladders and I manage to grab it down at the end from a place thats closer to the water. We take pictures, and it's about ten pounds and really neat looking. Their scales are so big and gold. They are a monstrous looking fish.

Anyways, so the guy that helped me land it is Jimmy, he hadn't ever caught a big carp before. So I show him how I'm doing it, and since he only had a trout rod I go and get my other salmon rod for him to borrow.

Together we ended up catching a bunch of fish, some smaller than the others, but the last one we hooked was ginourmous. He got it on and it took off, thrashing about and making a general commotion. We'd been there for a while and there's an audience by now, some kids are chasing around and oohing and aweing, and general getting in the way as he's trying to chase down the fish, and as they're rounding the corner of the dock it scrapes the line down the corner and puts a horrible fray on the line. I yell out too loosen the drag fast, we were using thirty pound braid so there had to be a little strength. The line held for another 30 seconds or so, but he didn't give it enough and it snapped. The fish was three times the size of the big one I got today. We stayed to try and let it come back, but the other guys were scared off by all the comotion.

Another guy broke off two carp of an undetermined size. He was using 8 pound mono, and couldn't control them, they just snapped the line after nearly spooling him each time.

I know what you're thinking - carp fishing? You've got to b e kidding me. But it's one of the funnest stillwater fish that you can catch in great nuimbers, they're cool looking and a lot of fun. When you don't have time to get out to the rivers, look no further for a quick fix.

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