Fishing for big pre-spawn carp

I was ready to do some still fishing for big bottom feeders, as I had been fishing pike for the past few outings. Avi was supposed to come along for this pre-spawn carp fishing outing, but backed out at the last minute due to the cold and strong North East wind and intermittent rain. I headed out alone, plan was to test some more boilies against each other, though not as easy when you can only fish using one rod.

Got set up around 10:30 AM, started off with on of my 16 MM hazelnut cream boilies. Success came early, my bite alarm went off less than half hour into the session. I set into the carp, and quickly figured out that it was a nice one, as I saw a huge splash when it surfaced in the distance.

Though the carp was heavy, it was no match for my Beastmaster rod, which almost made it seem easy, despite the torque that big carp seem to have just when they need it. As the fish neared shore, I knew it was a good 30+ lbs. Netting it alone was quite a challenge, as my 12 foot rod is significantly longer than my 8 foot landing net.

Finally netted the big carp, it weighed in at 32.5 lbs, my biggest so far this season. Luckily, another angler fishing not to far away was available to snap the picture.

Released the big carp, and set up again. Landed to more carp within the next hour, the belly on this next one makes me think the spawn is going to be very soon.

Bite died down for a while, eventually switched to my 16 MM garlic/3 pepper boilies. Landed another carp, followed by a false run, followed by another carp than ran into rocks and cut my line well above my shock leader. All within less than 2 hours.

Ended the session fishing with 20 MM licorice boilies, as I didn't have any more 16 mm on hand, but no more take in about 45 minutes, so I called it a day early enough to make it home and take Eli out for some night time catfishing.