Carp fishing for beginners

Every fishing season, I encounter various beginners to carp fishing. Whether through my carp guiding services, or family and friends, many people that have never fished for or caught any carp learn how it's properly done while carp fishing with me.

There are various levels of beginners to carp fishing. Some have never held a fishing rod in their lives, others have fished here and there on rare occasions, and yet others are seasoned anglers that have fished many species, but never targeted or managed to catch any carp.

Over the past 4 days, I fished with these three types, and managed to put all of them onto some carp. The first of the three outings was my friend Zalman. He is a distant relative that moved here from Europe a few years ago, he and I have become friends. His first day of vacation all year happened to coincide with an outing I was planning, so I invited him along, as he had mentioned wanting to try fishing to me in the past.

We hit the bank on a nice sunny day. As I do with all beginners to carp fishing,  I showed him the rod / reel combo, mechanism, a bit of technique, and detailed explanation of what I was doing during each step. The fish were on schedule, took about 1 hour for the first hit. I hooked and fought the fish, just to give him an idea on how to properly fight and land carp. When his turn came along, he did a perfect job, following my instructions to a tee.

Landed his first fish ever, a nice 20 lb carp.

Followed by two more, 21 and 23.5 lbs.

He caught another smaller carp later on, and we lost one in the rocks do to a line cut as well.

Needless to say, he fell in love with fishing, his first three fish being over 20 lbs, it is likely going to give him something to chase for a while. 

Headed out again a couple days later, this time with Karl and Jennifer. Both had very limited fishing experience. Jennifer was hoping to try various styles of fishing, and having seen some of my pics, she decided to give carp fishing a try.

Contrary to what some may believe, carp are one of the tougher species to target. It all boils down to sticking with techniques, presentation, and bait that has proven itself time and time again at a given area. Jennifer and Karl learned this valuable lesson the hard way. 6 hours into our outing, all we had was one carp that jammed into the rocks on the hookset and cut my hair rig. As you can imagine, I wasn't enjoying my day too much, except for the fact that the thunderstorms that were predicted never arrived, and we were in sunny warm conditions all day long. I knew the carp would eventually turn on again and start feeding, but it is very rare to have a 6 hour period without hits during the summer, especially when using 3 rods with baits that have all proven themselves many times. 

Finally, after 6 hours, we got another run. Karl did a good job, we landed the first carp of the day. 

Took less than half an hour, Jennifer caught her first carp.

As the bite was on, I extended our outing to give them a chance to hook and land some more. They managed another carp each, and lost a few more during the process. 

All in all, a tough start that turned out to be a very valuable learning experience for them, and luckily, a picture perfect happy ending.

The following day, I headed out with Mikhail and Alex. They were here on a business trip, visiting from Dallas, Texas. Both fish quite often in the home state, and both have fished many species all around the globe when they go on business trips or family vacations. Their experience was immediately apparent, even before we hit the bank. In contrast to the previous day, the weather had dropped by 10 degrees, and non stop rain combined with high North East winds were the forecast. Both anglers showed up wearing proper rain gear, which many may not have thought of packing when visiting Montreal in mid July.

As I set up the first rod, I mentioned the slow start we had the previous day, hoping the bite wouldn't take nearly as long. Sure enough, 5 minutes into our outing, Mikhail landed his first carp. Alex followed with his first about 15-20 minutes later. The bite was pretty much non stop all day long, keeping me on my toes, and very active. They ended up landing 15 carp out of 19 runs. Both caught carp over 20 lbs, and Alex caught a 15 lb mirror carp, very rare fish in that area, and first one I've seen all season.

Needless to say, they were more than thrilled with the outing, the horrible weather didn't make any difference to our good moods. As I've been to Dallas quite often, we discussed local fishing throughout the day in between fighting and landing carp. I'm quite sure that both of them will put the knowledge they acquired to good use when they get back home. Although they are new to carp fishing, they are veteran anglers, I'm confident they'll adapt in no time and have some nice carp pics to send me in the near future.

Headed out a couple days later, this time on a fishing date with my wife. She's been carping with me in the past, just about the only type of fishing she enjoys, as not much to do on her end besides relaxing in the sun and fighting the fish when we hook up. She's getting better at bringing them and manages to land most of her fish now.

Next outing was an a nice 3 generation outing, father son and grandfather all got to try carping for their first time. All have fished before to various degrees, but all were new to carp. Again, they learned the ropes, and got the techniques down, as well as landing some nice carp. Nice smiles all around.

Gotta love 3 generation fishing pics, pure family fun:

With another couple months left before carp fishing slows down, I'm hoping to show the ropes to some more beginners over the next few weeks. I have many available dates in September, which can be some of the next fishing of the season, as the carp start feeding heavily before they shut down for winter. 

My daily rate is $300, up to 3 adults, $50 for each additional person.

Contact me about an outing by clicking: http://freshwaterphil.com/contactcarp.cfm