My wife's first carp fishing trip

After being married to a fishing nut like myself for 16 years, my wife finally decided to try fishing this summer. Though we'd been out on a few evening outings around town, the fish haven't co-operated much, and she can't take the bugs that come out as the sun sets. I finally took my wife out for a short carp outing, goal was to have her hook, fight and land a decent sized carp.

We got to our spot around noon, I set up 2 lines with boilies on hair rigs, as sweet corn as bait is just about useless for carp these days due to the massive amount of gobies that eat off the bait. As I was casting quite far from shore, I chummed with boilies as well.

After an hour or so without a hit, I switched spots, and got hit within the first couple minutes. My wife grabbed the rod, got a good hookset, and the fight was on. I coached her through the process, as she had to get used to letting the fish fight the rod and time the retrieve in between the fast runs the sent the reel screaming. After a few minutes, she had her first carp in the net, a decent 15 lb fish.

She landed her next one bout 20 minutes later, almost identical to the first one in size. About 15 minutes later, we missed a false start, but within another 15 minutes or so I had a big one on the line. Unfortunately, it spit the hook in the first minute or so.

About 10 minutes later, her line goes, and the fight was on again. The fish made it easy on her as it ran straight for us. By the time it realized what it had done, it was 20 feet away. That's when I realized that it was bigger than I imagined. I finally landed it in the net, turned out to be a spawned out female that weighed in at 22 lbs. My guess is she would have been closer to 27 or 28 lbs were she still full, as she measured exactly 3 feet in length.

With my luck, it was now time to go, as we had errands to take care of. I enjoyed showing her what makes me head out in rain, sun, cold or hot weather. I hope to go on many more outings with her.