Carpfishing in Canada
Carpfishing in Canada
LAKE ONTARIO FRUSTRATIONS
An unspoilt area of Hamilton Harbour, looking out from 'Carrols Point'
Hi All, I've had a passion for carp for many years, been known to travel almost 400 kms for a days fishing ! In the name of our mighty adversary the limits are almost without boundary.I would like to share with you one of my most memorable carping trips. It all happened in Canada. During my fishing experiance , mostly in Britain ,but sometimes in France, one of my strongest points is fish location : generally I can be lucky enough to find fairly qiuckly just where the fish are . I usually can explain why the fish are there but sometimes it seems to be beyond comprehension ,I just know the fish are there !. This place has a grip on me, its not altogether a pretty place to look at , there are other reasons why I would be better off not even knowing of this place ; but it has me by the throat & I MUSTconqeur the fish within.
I arrived at this place purely by accident , dissillusioned by the accesibility of a lake, driven to early in the morning I just could not get to the areas I wanted to fish ,much of the bankside being private ,only a tiny area of access. I packed up cursing my bad choice & luck. Never mind I thought ,lets get out the map & look for somewhere else. I'd alway's fancied an area known as Cootes Paradise ,at the southern extreme of Hamilton Harbour. It just looked to me like an area I would be foolish not to investigate. The actuall marsh area looked absolutely ideal for carp to spend the summer in , however something was not right & it was far too quiet for comfort .I learned from the locals that in fact the Cootes Paradise had been totally blocked off to the carp with a man made 'Carp 'Barrier', they were trying to 'improve' the area .However looking over the area ,which is quite difficult to orientate , the potential looked huge to me, I vowed to be back, already the grip was taking slowly hold of me!.
It was not untill next season that conditions were right for me to return . I must set the scene , Hamilton harbour is at the S.W. end of Lake Ontario it has a tiny inlet to the main lake so the harbour does not hardly connect to the big lake anymore . There has been severe pollution in the harbour but this situation has been addressed & conditions have improved dramatically;according to fisheries reports . At the furthest southern tip of the harbour ,which apart from the encircling traffic , is hardly touched by that steamrolling abomination called progress.
Once I'd scrambled down the embankment to the shoreline things started to look & feel real good , the water felt alive & just then there was an almighty crash only 30 ft out from the bank . Now I must explain that unlike in Britain & more northern parts of Europe the carp in the summertime generally do not bask on the surface so despite many 'stalking expeditions' when the sun is up, the fish go down ; I believe this is because the intensity of the sun is too much : especially during June till late August. This was May though & the water was just warming up nicely.
I scurried exitedly up the bank ,there was no place to park so I bulldozed the car in through the cemetary ,parked next to a compost heap, ripped the rods out of the trunk & was back to the lake puffing like a train. In a jiffy I'd cast out the first rod, CRAAASSSHHH out came another beauty ! I looked around for my catapult (slingshot) but blast ,it was still in the trunk ; well dam it ,I'm not going back, I thought . I used the throwing stick instead , might be better to bait in a line anyway, I reasoned. Well I cast out the second rod & looked for a comfortable log to sit on. As I glanced around the tip of my KM CF1 was bending round followed immediatly by that heart pounding sound caused by an Optonic at full tilt , I catapulted myself towards the rods almost upending the whole paraphanalia into the water. I grabbed the rod whilst trying desperately not to follow the direction in which the carp was pulling me, I leaned back enough to counter my powerfull opponent's steamtrain of a run, but the carp was having none of it : infact the brute increased speed much to my amazement ! I tell you no lie 20 ,30 ,40 50 yards of line came off the reel , eventually it slowed and was coming in easily , too bloody easy ,the carp had decided to go back to where it came from, I wound the reel at such speed I was fully expecting the thing to overheat & grounch to a dead stop .. The carp however had slowed down & I reconnected with the fish once again ,and once again the fish turned on another powerfull run . This time however, it ran almost paralell to the bank , & the line was inevitably going to become entangled within the trees growing in the densley vegetated margin. I felt almost helpless in controlling this carp & somehow I knew this carp was going to beat me ,but full pressure from my end eventually brought the fish in the margin once again , but this fish must have trained well because as it made off for the third run ; the hook pinged out , I was shaking & shattered. Throwing the rod up the bank , two other anglers appeared on the scene , I said "I just lost a bloody great carp" "Oh yeah ,no great loss then " was the reply. I was not amused but said nothing . I rebaited & recast & you know the almost same thing happened again ------ and again ----and again . I changed rigs changed hooks , Was shredded on the mussel beds , changed baits , tried every trick I knew but the fish would do the same thing 1 or 2 very powerfull runs & then the hook would drop out . In a period of 1.5 hrs I think this happened 6 times. My hair was pulled out several times during that period . I cranked over the grey matter ; what the hell is going on; I kept pounding at the symtoms ; fairly slow take , fast unstoppable run ,followed by hook hold failing ,- not affected by rigs . But now wait, I had been aware of the line pulling sideways on the last couple of runs , thought nothing of it since I was using slack lined 'confidence rigs' and the drift was often sufficient to pull some line off the spool often creating a bow in the line , but now I was suspicious, I put on a back lead and still I got screaming runs. What now ? the line should be on the bottom right , is it a liner or not ?
Well after sitting down a while & churning the whole situation over, I was suspecting line bites , but with the back leads ; this was where the confusion stemmed from. I took off the hookbaits & would you beleive it the runs continued ! But how then ? A quick survey of the lake bed revealed a channel in the bottom about 3-4 ft wide & 2 ft deeper than the lake bed , here was a perfect trench for the carp to travel along . I had cast over the top of this feature so my line ,even with the back lead , was acting like a trip wire & the carp were simply swimming straight into the line & I was ending up snagging the fish , which also explains the lack of control experienced whilst playing these fish. The carp in this area travel around in huge shoals 200/ 300 fish in a long line . Which explains why so many liners occured. So it just goes to show everything is not black & white, but there is a reason for everything & although I think from that session only one fish was landed , I felt at least something was learned & was in fact quite pleased to have sorted the confusion out. I am happy to report the fish that was landed was hooked fair & square in the mouth although it was taken from another area !
Cheers for now-! ---- Carpsava.
My Son Rob with a 20 lber, his first & caught from Carrols Point.(Hamilton, L Ontario)
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