Too many thirties... C'est la vie!

The story

As mentioned in a previous story, I turned 50 this year. And I had decided to fish fewer sessions during the year, but really good ones. For the fall, I wanted to spend a full week fishing full time, all by myself, concentrating on a single spot, which is something I had never done. I selected an area of the St Lawrence which I was pretty sure would host numerous big fish, and... ok, I'll admit right away... I was hoping for my first 40 pounds common.

I was going to apply a strategy I had mulled over during the entire summer. I was going to start prebaiting with maize and small diameter (14mm) sweet boilies. Then increase the diameter of the boilies over the week, moving to HNV boilies, up to 30mm, and fully eliminating smaller bait. And betting on a pyramid effect to weed out the small ones and catch the real monsters. I would alternate between chod rigs on the bottom, critically balanced pop-ups and zig rigs until I would find the magic formula.

Nah I'm just kidding. Most of what I just said is utter non-sense if you ask me. I simply threw half a bucket of maize, half a bucket of pellets in the water every night. And fished with the remaining maize plus method balls during the day. Simply taking care of adding some bait in the water every time I landed a fish. And using a very basic bolt rig with two kernels of maize. Simple as that.

Long story short, fancy strategy or not, I did catch big fish. Many big fish in 7 days of hard fishing, including numerous 20s. Now what about the real biggies? Well, maybe I actually caught too many 30s... How is that possible? Let's see what happened.

The outcome of the first 3 days of fishing? Pretty good, I dare say... Day 1: slow day, capped by a 26 pounder. Day 2: I started by a 27lb, then a 34lb beauty. And a few more fish. Day 3 was amazing, no less than 3 thirties, including a 34-8lb biggie. Here are the 30s.

A decent start... What about the following days? Day 4 provided another low 30. Day 5 was special. My second run was a 38lb very round fish, which is actually my third biggest carp ever at the time of writing. Small head, small tail, but big fish nevertheless! And yes, it was real windy that day, which delivered no less than 20 fish total.

What about Day 6? I landed again quite a few fish, ranging from babies to ugly face to upper 20s (one 29lb, two 28lb, one 27lb), but alas, no more biggie (although... the big difference between a 29 lber and a 30 lber is only in our human minds).... It was time to stop catching 30s and catch a 40, but where is it?

For the last day, I decided to start early and I was carrying and setting up my gear as the sun rose. I wanted to take my best chance at attaining this elusive dream of catching a 40 pounder, even if I knew chances were pretty slim. My 3rd run proved that big fish were still in front of me, this one was actually 30-0lb, right on the mark! 

Hours were passing by, I caught a solid number of fish, including a 28lb and a 29lb. It seemed increasingly likely that the miracle wasn't going to happen and that my 40 pounder would have to wait for another St Lawrence experience... And yet... A miracle did happen... As I was standing up to start wrapping up my gear, a bit sad to finish without one more high note, I got a run... The last fish I landed that week... And quite possibly a fish rarer than a 40 pounder in this water... A magnificent mirror with very few scales and a pinkish skin!

So... 84 fish total... Seven days, seven 30s... Too many 30s (?!), no 40, as they say in French quarters, c'est la vie! And a beautiful mirror at the end. Not too shabby.