Opening Day Glory!

It's that time of year again, the reopening of the traditional coarse season...

After doing a little bit of walking in the closed season, my friend Mark Lindsay and I had the pleasure of stumbling across some carp on our travels, ghosting about the place. With a lot of talk about what to do on opening day, we decided to meet up and see if we could extract a fish or two! Mark very kindly made a few extra trips to introduce some food into the river as well which certainly gave us a fine head-start, with the 16th only days to go... I decided to take a fair selection of terminal tackle as I was unsure as to what to expect. Although I have caught river carp, I have never actually targetted them by design. Every carp I have managed to land from the river thus far, has been almost by accident whilst roving for chub. As I was nearing my way to the river, I had a text from Mark informing me that he had his first carp in the net. It was a very encouraging start indeed, and I hurriedly made my way to the swim to do some photographs.

Mark's rip-roaring start! A pristine Ghost Koi!

It was a wonderful start, and what was even more encouraging was that more fish were showing and were certainly in the mood for a 'grub' about. After trying to intercept a couple of fish with my static rig with little success, Mark kindly pointed me in the direction of a couple of nice looking fish that were crusing in a nice bay. With the fish acting a little cautious, Mark kindly let me use his rod set up for freelining. With a bit of patience, a lovely young common slurped in the bait. On striking, the fish gave a very spirited battle indeed, typical river carp style, as I tried to deter it from the thick weed. It was a lovely mahogany-coloured common carp, and a wonderful way to start the season.

A beautiful example of a Common Carp!

As lunchtime approached, we baited a few spots up and waited for the perfect opportunity for an ambush. Whilst I was tweaking my rig slightly, I sighted a nice ghost carp patrolling along a nice lie, vacuuming plenty of bait as it did so. I knew this was certainly a good opportunity, so I did my best to lower my rig towards its dinner table, whilst it had moved off on the rest of its patrol. Sure enough, she returned, and was back on the bait. After watching this fish guage itself on plenty of particle and gliding over my hookbait plenty of times, I tweaked my rig slightly further and lowered it onto a slightly more clear spot. I decided to stay down in this instance, but Mark continued to watch as the ghostly shadow re-emerged. "He's right on your hookbait" Mark said excitedly as my eyes remained glued to the rod tip. The anticipation was almost unbearable with this fish just inches from my hookbait. "You've got him!" Mark shouted, as I saw my rod sliding right across the ground. I had her on! All I could do now was hold on to the culprit for dear life as she ploughed through beds of thick weed. With 12lb line being really tested and my 1.75lb barbel rod buckled over, I managed to deter it from ploughing through anything more! An excrutiating bolt for the near bank followed, before I managed to finally get her head up. With no messing about whatsoever, Mark managed to net her. We both exclaimed sheer joy, as it was a proper team effort, and one of the target fish we had seen in the bag! We put her on the scales, and at a pretty solid double (12lbs 15oz), Mark and I were really happy that this team effort had paid off.

My best River Carp so far!

As the sun was at its peak at midday, the action significantly slowed. Mark freelined in a few spots and the first fish to show for his efforts was a lovely looking chub around the 3lb mark. With a few more carp showing, with me sticking to my static fishing and Mark continuing to be proactive with free-lining, he had soon found a nice group. With stealth and patience, Mark was into another! The battle was of another typical river carp - plenty of energetic sprints and supersonic bolts for freedom.  This fish was the first mirror of the session, and was in absolutely stunning condition. Following on from this fish, after Mark had left for home, I made my way to another familiar hunting ground. Just as I was looking at some nice areas, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a pair of carp cruising together near the opposite bank. I put some bait on a clear patch and casted my rig in, hoping for an opportunistic capture. I was very hopeful when I noticed that the larger fish, the ghost carp (probably around 6lbs), was close by. I watched the fish absolutely troughing before it finally tripped up. All hell broke lose when I picked up the rod, and the fish commitedly bolted through the streamer weed. I tried to slow this run, but unfortuantely in doing so, the hook had slipped. It was a pity as it would have been my first particular carp from this spot, but it was not the end of the world!

A lovely dumpy mirror, look at those colours!

I decided for the final few hours, after some unproductive ones walking plenty of water, to fish one final swim for the day. It was not long until I was getting some response to bait I had thrown out. The first result was a chub that had turned up in the swim, and certainly scattered the carp until the light levels dropped and they were back. After a few hours of watching some sizable carp enter the swim, the rod tip slammed round. It this time turned out to be one of the smaller fish that was in the swim, but it was a lovely way to finish the day. The colours were absolutely stunning, as well as the colour of its fins, being mixtures of orange, purple and even red!

A pretty, young common to finish the day!

Thank you for taking the time to read this opening account of the river season, lets hope for a few more sessions like this! Huge thanks goes to Mark for being great company for the day, doing those extra trips to introduce the bait (which definitely made a huge difference) and for taking some lovely images. It was probably one of, if not my most, memorable opening day fishing! I look forward to more trips in the near future!

Tight Lines,

Tom