Discovery Ain't Always Fun

Introduction

It is the very last day of the discovery month. I thought I'd come back in discovery mode for the day... Let me digress a little bit first.

Discovery can be extremely rewarding. Last fall, I won the Big4 thanks to a big river swim I had explored two springs in a row, didn't catch much, tried again in the fall and hit gold (six 30s in 4 days!). In the 'Ten Days of Discovery' story I posted a few days ago, I stumbled upon a magical pier on a great lake where I landed one healthy fish after another for hours to go. Quite a while ago, I found a swim on the St Lawrence in Quebec where I caught over the years an ungodly number of 20s and numerous 30s (including a 38lb and a 39lb). Etc.

Those highlights are the stories we like to talk about, but they don't come easy. During another discovery trip in Quebec, I spent 9 full days of fishing catching exactly 2 carp. Two other trips ended up with a royal blank. Etc. Even the venues where you were successful in the past can prove very dispiriting when you come back. I just spent 4 days fishing the big river swim I mentioned earlier, the water level was 10 feet higher (I kid you not! I checked the official data!) than last year, giving me all sorts of challenges to fish there. I very painfully extracted 2 carp overall (nice average though, 19lb and 20lb), lost three other carp and numerous rigs in snags. I got a last minute run yesterday, big run, took a lot of line, and... it found an underwater rock to break the line on. Yeah, I was quite dejected.

An Intriguing Reservoir

Today, I had a relatively short drive to my new destination (I'll fish tomorrow with Carpncat, an old CAG member). So I drove leisurely on the way, stopped to get a coffee mid morning, not quite sure how to occupy my day, I was quite tired after a poor night and a bad experience with a big river. I checked the map and saw that there was another river on the way where I know carp are numerous, and a fairly sizable reservoir that I never heard of. My guess was that the river would be flooded too, the reservoir was looking good, it seemed that fishing was allowed, let's try. Sometimes, we can find true monsters in reservoirs, this is always intriguing. 

I quickly found some access, although this seemed slippery and not such a great idea on a rainy day. I drove a little more, found a nice park and better access. I wasn't too sure carp would be around though. I threw some bait just in case I decide to come back, and kept driving around. A small river that looked good on the map was actually the main outflow of the reservoir with a big structure of a dam and no access. There was a very promising large peninsula on the map, with a road going all the way, this looked great except that... said road was closed (and way too long for me to walk with heavy carp gear). I kept driving and found an old bridge that is now closed to circulation, a weedy shallow cove on one side and the main reservoir on the other side. On the right side of the bridge, there was a lot of shore access and a broad view of the reservoir. This looked VERY carpy. And also very convenient for a tired angler as I could park the car quite close to where I elected to fish. 

I threw some bait, cast my rods at various distances and started to wait while observing my surroundings. Well, nothing much moved for 2 hours, except for a colorful butterfly which landed straight in my maize bucket (yes, I saved it and it flew away). A local bass angler came to chat, I asked about carp, he said "oh yes, plenty of them, really big ones". I asked "how big?" and he just couldn't give me any specific information. Still, I was hopeful, even pondering if I should reorganize a bit the end of my trip to spend more time fishing this reservoir.

It was a wet weather, with occasional drizzles, then it started to rain, not pouring, but annoying enough. My wife challenged me at the beginning of my 3 weeks trip to catch a fish every day. She wasn't specific about carp, and I had a couple of catfish-only days, but I made it so far (except for a day where I didn't fish due to heavy rain). So I wasn't intent to give up easy. I repositioned a rod closer to the bridge (a tad too far from my other rods for comfort), and waited...

Mini Bites

I started to notice some rolling in the area I had prebaited to begin with, but it wasn't obvious those were carp. Four hours after I started, I got a pull on my line and some beeps on my alarm. I thought 'catfish', but I was desperate enough by then to be ok with it. I decided to give it one more hour. Half an hour later, I got one of those aborted runs going nowhere. Adding that up to the increase in surface activity I kept seeing from time to time, I was pretty sure what would come next. 

I went to get my third rod, cast it close to the rod which moved (which I had recast too) and decided to wait until I get a bite, damn it. It took 15 minutes and I finally got a proper run on the third rod. I played this fish VERY carefully, I tell you. As I had guessed, this was a small carp, 5 pounds at most. I was happy to get it, mind you, but this wasn't exactly the big 20+ I was hoping from this reservoir to begin with...

I started to wrap up everything (enough with the rain!) while leaving one rod in the water as long as possible. I was sure a school of small carp was around by now and that I might get a last minute run while wrapping up. I was correct, I landed an even smaller carp and rolled my eyes. I finished wrapping up and drove away, a little dejected.

Now that I am in a warm and dry place, before writing this story, I checked the Web about this venue using the keyword 'carp'. I found a handful of pictures. All fish had this look of being underfed, clearly too many of them for too little natural food. All looking 10 pounds or less. 

What was the name of this reservoir? I already forgot. INTENTIONALLY. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Post scriptum (the day after)

Actually... I learned since then that I was quite wrong in two respects:

1) CAG members have known about this place (and this precise swim) for a long time, and this is indeed where we find a bunch of babies

2) There are (or were) some really big fish in this reservoir (a 45lb has been caught by the famous Al K. a long time ago). HUH?

So I guess I have to disqualify myself from the discovery event!! Oh well, it was still a discovery for me as of yesterday... Albeit not a fun one.