Now that I've dispensed with the introduction, let me get on with the story Joe shared with me yesterday in an email. It seems this past Sunday, Joe was carp fishing at Lake Trashmore. He had four rods set out for the chosen specie of the day.
About an hour in, he got his first run and subsequently played and banked an 8-lb.-plus carp. There was just one problem, though. In the process of playing that wily challenger, it crossed one of his other lines, so after unhooking, weighing and releasing the carp, he set about "trying" to untangle the two lines.
Turned out that he wasn't successful and ended up cutting both lines. So now he had to re-tie one rig and hand-retrieve the other from the depths of Lake Trashmore, some 40 yards out from the shoreline. (Now then, Rob C., draw your chair up close, 'cause here's where this story takes a turn I think you can relate to.)
Said Joe, "I started wrapping the line around my hand, and when the line got taut, I tried to speed up my winding, so as to avoid hanging my rig on the the bottom. Suddenly, though, something on the other end of the line pulled back--vigorously! I might add. I was both surprised and perplexed.
"If this was a sizeable carp," Joe continued, "I had little chance of landing it, 'cause I could not stop it from running without cutting my hands with the 15-lb. mono. I only had about 15 feet of slack line I already had taken up, so I decided to try easing the fish in, so that if it ran, I could feed line until (and if!) it tired.
"Fortunately, as I worked the fish toward me, there were only a few small runs, but nothing that endangered either my slack line or my hands. Once I eventually could see the fish, imagine how shocked I was to see a 4- or 5-lb. largemouth bass attached to the end of my line. I quickly netted the fish and took it to my unhooking mat.
"I no more than had unhooked the bass when the alarm on one of my two remaining carp rods started sounding, signaling that I had another run. With the bass lying there in my net on the unhooking mat, I ran back to land this new run as quickly as possible.
"As I traversed the 50 feet or so back down the rise and into the shallows, I realized that I didn’t have a net to use for this fish. The bass still was in it up on the unhooking mat. So I had to back my way up the bank to the mat, all the while holding onto my rod, to which was attached a fighting fish! I probably should explain here that carp nets aren’t of the fixed-hoop variety. Rather, they are in two separable pieces: the handle, which ends in a V-block, and the net, which has two supporting metal rods that fit into the V-block of the handle.
"Normally, when one lands a carp, once the fish is in the net, you detach its two metal rods from the handle’s V-block, then roll the net down toward the carp to make lifting the heavy fish easier. In other words, I had to retrieve the net and reassemble it as well, all the while holding onto an angry carp!
"Eventually, I was able to successfully land it and bring the carp back up to my unhooking mat, where I realized that the bass had been languishing while I was bringing in that second carp. I definitely was curious to know exactly how much the bass weighed, but I also realized that, if I didn’t get it back into the water soon, it might not survive, and I really didn’t want to accidentally kill such a nice specimen.
"I rushed the bass down into the shallows, where I started resuscitating it, as I have seen saltwater anglers do with big bull drum. Three or four times after working it back and forth to force water through its gills, I tried releasing it, but the bass made only a feeble attempt at moving on its own. Each time, it quickly turned on its side and floated to the surface. I wasn't about to give up, though. I continued my resuscitation efforts until that nice bass finally stayed upright and slowly swam off, following the sloping bottom contours back into the depths.
"I was so happy and relieved that this beautiful bass would live to bite and fight another day. Here’s the kicker: 'What, you may ask, did I catch it on?' A #4 wide-gap hook, baited only with a small, star-shaped, fluorescent-chartreuse bead threaded onto the hook. Using such a bait is a common practice among pay-laker carp anglers.
"Believe it or not, carp are curious enough to pick up a plastic bead (hook attached) and get hooked in the process. Don’t know when that bass took a liking to that bead--probably sometime during the initial carp fight when the lines crossed would be my guess.
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