Story 2011 Lucky Birthdays


Jerome's lucky birthday(s)

 

When

April 17th, 2011

Where

MA

See also

2008 birthday

2009 birthday

2010 birthday

 


The story

 

In the past few years, I went out on April 17th, which is my birthday, and three years in a row, I hit gold!

In 2008, I fished a local lake which I had never tried before. Fairly big commons are known out there, but my first run was a... fully scaled mirror! 20lb of it!

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In 2009, I went back to the same venue, and landed a magnificent 25 pounder. On anise maize. Mark my words!

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In 2010, I fished a new swim from a venue I fished only once before, and landed a string of cute little mirrors.

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Now, what about 2011? I thought you'd never ask!

 

This morning, I chose to play it safe, and I went to fish a spot of the Merrimack river where I had great sessions mid April in the past couple of years. The spot is pretty cramped, and the water level has to be exactly right, which seemed to be the case today. Half an hour later, I was rewarded with a very nice & colorful mid-teen.

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I was sure I'd keep going with a string of fish, but alas, this was a fluke and nothing moved for a while. So I reflected on my past birthdays and decided to go pay a visit to the venue where I had caught the fully scaled and the 25lb. Ok, I'll admit, I actually prebaited it a bit before going to the Merrimack, I knew I'd probably come back! Alas, nothing moved this time.

But this wasn't my real plan. I actually wanted to go fish another section of the Merrimack where I caught a 26lb last Fall. And a swim where I never fished in the spring. Now that was really stretching fate, you would think... I drove there, and stumbled up two nice guys from RI who had exactly the same idea as me, but luckily didn't fish exactly the same spot as where I wanted to set up.
Two hours later, nothing had moved. I was reading a book on my Kindle, no longer believing in April miracles. And suddenly, I noticed that the RI guys were releasing a carp! After quite a few hours of nothingness, they got a mid-teen. Could the fish be moving in?

I returned to my e-book, after recasting all my rods. I was sitting close to my rods, and one of them issued a few beeps. I distractedly looked at it, thinking it was the wind. But, hey, the rod was twitching. I hesitated a bit, saw the rod twitch again, and decided to lift the rod. I connected with what I knew was a heavy fish. Which decided to go straight for a known snag. I succeeded to turn it before it was too late, and finally landed a very thick fish. Which turned out to be 26-8lb, no less, my 3rd biggest fish from the Merrimack.

Miracles do happen on birthdays! Four years in a row... Now the pressure is on for my 50th birthday (next year!)...

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PS. forgot to say... The bait was anise maize, of course... Which I didn't use since my 2009 birthday... Except yesterday, where I recorded a video with carp not being exactly enthused about such bait to say the least... Go figure!

2013 Follow-up

 

My 2013 birthday didn't work out as well as usual. The week-end before my birthday, I prebaited a new spot on the Concord river, this seemed promising, but I got kicked out - this was supposedly private. I went to to the Merrimack, got nothing. The following week-end, Iain had prebaited the same spot, we tried again, and didn't get much action, except... a very nice 24 pounder for me. So I guess I can claim that my string of lucky birthdays kept going... Lucky me. Oh, and first fish ever on a Mieliebom method ball!