Happy Halloween - I caught a freak carp!

The story

After reading stories from Lance about a certain pond in MA, Dom and myself had this interesting snow fishing session two days ago, which confirmed that there are carp in this water, commons and kois. Today was a beautiful day, close to 70F, so I decided to give it another try in the afternoon. I took some maize soaked in "Obsession" with me, drove to the venue and started to plumb to find out some deep hole. Well, I don't know about that, but this pond is very shallow EVERYWHERE I casted... So I started to have serious doubts about those stories of huge white koi and big commons. The koi we had a glimpse of two days ago definitely didn't seem that big.

I baited a couple of spots, but couldn't bring myself to fish. So I took my car and looked for a certain cemetery pond, supposedly full of kois. Couldn't find it (having forgotten my maps didn't help!). I reluctantly came back to where I baited. Two rods in the water in the 1st spot I baited (where we saw the koi two days ago) and I started to read a thriller about... bass fishing!

One hour later, I decided that I was giving up on this pond. I couldn't believe that some people were spreading stories about giant fish in such a pond. Meeting with Mike (a local carp & trout angler I sometimes fish with) who repeated the same "rumors" didn't make me change my mind. Mike has a slight tendency to exaggerate...

Well, this was mid-afternoon, it's a nice day, what should I do? Ah yes, I baited another spot, where I caught the snow carp. Ok, well, let's give it another try and try to save face... So I went to the other side of the pond, cast fairly close (since I threw my bait facing the wind two hours earlier, it didn't go very far!) and resumed reading my book. After a while, being almost ready to go home, I saw a young guy on his bicycle rushing to his fishing spot. I thought it was Frankie The Challenger (real name is Anthony, by the way). Since I promised him some decent carp hooks, I went fumbling in my car and left my rods in the water. You never know.

I came back to my rods and started to walk towards Anthony. But one of my rods started to scream. I immediately thought "oh, ok, another 10 pounder to come, hey, it's better than nothing". I started to play the fish, and... hey, this thing is taking quite some line. Hmmm. Might be a 15 pounder? After a little while, I started to think that this was a bigger fish. I got a glance of the fish, and... what a strange color. I couldn't bring myself to accept this was THE KOI yet...

An annoying bass angler kept casting a few yards from where I was playing the fish, I could have slapped the guy! Because after a second glance at the fish, it did seem to be the great white shark, er... I mean great white koi!

In the mean time, Anthony came to see what was happening, and I sent him to get the net (which was still in the car, to give you a measure of how confident I was!). This wasn't a fish I was going to land bare-handed... So yes, we did land the fish safely. And yes, it was the great white koi. And yes, it was big... you seated? I still can't believe it myself... I landed a 24lb white koi...

Here is the best shot of the beauty, courtesy of my photographer Anthony. Note the black spots near the tail. I spent 15 seconds trying to remove this dirt from the fish before it dawned on me that... it was part of the fish!

A few more shots of the wonder fish. Note that the other side doesn't have any black spots. But its head (and fins) was orange!

 

 

 

Then Anthony took care of the white beauty, and brought it back to the water like a pro!

 

What really intrigued me is that the bass angler dismissively stated "nah, this isn't the bigger one, there is a much bigger one in there". Er... Really? Now I guess that we'll see a few new carpers on this pond...

 

 

 

Something finally dawned on me... One of the difficult goals I had in mind for the end of this year was to catch a 20+ from a local pond. I fished two local ponds very hard, to try to do it, to no avail. Another goal was to catch a new koi. Sure enough, goal#2 was fulfilled today, but it took me two hours to finally realize that I had also fulfilled goal#1 by the same token!

 

But even better, this koi turned out to be the leading candidate for the Freshwater Hall of Fame (i.e. the biggest koi officially submitted in North America for this prestigious award!). UNBELIEVABLE!

 

Post Scriptum (31-Jan-06)

 

That's it! I was stopping home on my way to a business trip, and to my surprise an envelope from the National Freshwater Hall of Fame was waiting for me... Inside, there was a diploma, two patches and a pin officially stating that I am the holder of the All Tackle WORLD RECORD for kois! Thanks to my 24lb catch.

 

Please note that the previous record holder (Roy L) also caught his koi in the Boston vicinity! Sorry, buddy!

 

Well, of course, this is hardly the largest koi ever caught worldwide, much bigger ones have been recorded in Europe. Those guys in Wisconsin managing the US records have a strange definition of 'the world'... So I guess it is more fair to say that I hold the record for the US. Bill Gordon... Work on it now... You are really the one who should hold this record...

 

 

As for any award ceremony, many thanks are in order...

 

First, to Dominic Mariano without whom I would never have gone fishing in this precise location.

 

Next, to my two witnesses, Corey and Anthony who had the best idea in the world to hang out at this spot the day of Halloween! And special thanks to Anthony for a mad dash to my car to get the net and for the great pictures.

 

Next, big thanks to the MA Division of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist who gracefully agreed to "positively identify" the fish as a koi, solely based on pics.

 

Also, very grateful thanks to Scott Osmond who provided very useful guidance on how to navigate the process of such a record submission. In addition of being my special mentor on carp fishing at large!

 

And also Master Pezalla, because the bait I used was maize soaked in his unique "Obsession for Carp"...

 

And last but not least, Lady Luck. Who in truth did most of the work.