Not much of a discovery, but it made my day

The Story

For the past 7 years now, I regularly traveled 'North' to fish the St Lawrence river in a French-speaking area. I did a LOT of discovery work out there. Most of my now favorite spots, I found by myself or I figured them out following a tenuous hint on a non-carp-fishing forum. I only documented a small part of this experience through discovery month stories, although a lot could have be added... Good things (catching an ungodly number of fish, including numerous 30s; getting oh-so-close to a 40+; great scenery), bad things (blanking for days; harsh weather; shitty motels; breaking and losing gear) and everything in-between including badly hurting my back and arms more than once while dealing with large groups of big fish. There are worse problems, but it still hurts!

It now became a tradition for me to go there, and of course, it gets harder to find new spots, plus the temptation is too big to come back to where I know I'll have a great time. So I kind of settled in a routine.

This year was a bit special though. I had a New England guest scheduled to join me for the last few days of my trip. Somebody who never fished for carp outside the USA so far. And somehow, this triggered me to do something a bit different in the days before he arrived. 

In the past years, I fished with some level of success an area with several canals and small dams, starting by a cool 29lber + a (rare) mirror combo the first time I tried going there. That was a discovery story in itself, as none of the few local carp anglers had never caught a mirror before. Two years ago, I had taken a long walk on an island easily accessible by a bridge nearby, and figured out that on the other side of the island, there was a fairly sizable channel, right behind a modest dam and a giant lock. I mean it, a giant lock! Designed for those huge St Lawrence Seaway tankers. Seeing those monster boats go by is a big part of my fishing pleasure out there. The whole area screamed for carp. I even playfully thought that such channel might be a good winter holding area (no doubt it's frozen on Jan 1st though!). 

The first evening I arrived in the area, I went to take a look with the idea of trying this new channel, while also landing a few fish close to the bridge (which I had fished before). I did some plumbing in the channel, and selected a cramped swim I liked. It was going deep rather quickly, and since the water is real clean out there, I could see rocks a few feet deep. Which gave me the idea of throwing some maize close to shore, where I could clearly see it landing. I prebaited the new swim and the known bridge, and went to dinner and bed. Of course, I didn't sleep that much, anticipation... 

The day after was quite rainy. I started quite late in the morning when the weather cleared up a tad, and I went to take a look at my new swim, and... darn it. My visible maize was still there, untouched. Really? I couldn't believe it. Quite disgruntled, I went back to fish the bridge (very convenient to fish under a bridge when it's raining) and started to feel better as I caught several fish in a row. Plus the weather nicely cleared up after a while, I even had a decent sunset at the end of the day.

Just out of stubbornness, I also spent an hour fishing the new spot, watching my untouched maize sitting pretty, and of course, with no result. Was I so wrong? How could this area not hold fish? I came back to my room with plenty of doubts in my mind. You know, when doing discovery work, it is easy to doubt yourself. You find great looking spots, you try and you royally blank, what is wrong with you, does this sound familiar? It certainly does to me... Check this pic, the maize is sitting there untouched. Hmpf.

The day after was VERY rainy in the morning. I took my car, and went driving around exploring a fairly sizable river I had in mind for a while, I found a few interesting spots, but nothing that made me stop and cast a rod. Plus... when you have the St Lawrence nearby, why in hell would you fish anywhere else? Even if this picture looks pretty good...

So early afternoon, I came back to my bridge/island. I took a small bucket of maize, and went to check the new swim, not expecting to find much. And... you guessed... the maize was gone! All of it! Funny how your morale can change like the weather, from very gloomy to very sunny... I threw some bait, and came back to fish under the bridge while it was still raining a bit. I caught a couple of fish, and when the sun finally started to show up, nobody or nothing would have stopped me!

I moved, clumsily deployed my things in the new cramped swim, cast a rod with a method ball, opened a book to read, and... got a run! YES! All my doubts were erased by the beautiful click-click-click of my baitrunner. It was a 25 pounder, no less, pristine. Yes, maybe I let go some sort of a primal scream... Here is the fish in the net, looking puny, I know, but I couldn't wait to take a pic!

A big boat went through the lock, this was amazing to see, and I got another run just as the boat was moving away, a smaller fish but no matter. This just made my day more than a 20+ fish session... There is nothing like discovering a new swim and making it work. This is just magical.

Now, what about the rest of the trip? Well, there was no discovery by the rules of the event. But a certain individual (the secret guest) has some stars in his eyes since then... Once he started to get the hang of an environment like he had never seen, he caught no less than 3 PBs (25lb, 29-8lb, 29-12lb - too funny) and numerous other fish. Oh, and I caught multiple teens, numerous 20s, and even a couple of low 30s.

Amazingly, as he was wrapping up, nearly ready to go home, I set up in his swim, and my rod started to scream. I sat on my chair, refusing to budge, he had to take the rod, and this was a nice upper 20. Then he went to remove his last bank stick from under another rod, gave me the rod... which started to scream in my hands. And I landed the biggest fish of the trip, a hefty 31 pounder. That was a REALLY cool finish.