One chumming day!
This was on a spring day. It was about 65 degrees in the morning when I got there. I looked the lake over, to see if I could see the feeding bubbles. They were everywhere! I watched the carp jumping around the lake, then I heard the, well you know what I mean, not the high but the low pitch, when that fish of a life-time rolls. It was down in the corner. Well there was no more looking, off I went. I had been watching the fish and people fishing for the last few weeks, no one, I mean no one, was fishing close enough for these fish. I had been having a plan for a couple of weeks now. My plan was to catch it when it was quiet and not a lot of fisherman around, THIS was the day. I had saved my bait for the last month in a 5-gallon bucket; boy did it smell. I got setup and baited. Then I started to chum, right off of the bank. This went on for about 3 hours. I had caught a few carp in the 10lb range. Then my blood started to rise; they were coming to the bank now. You could see the backs of the fish; their tales were striking, and the dorsal fins cutting the water would make your hair rise. I then pulled all 3 of my reels in, baited and just held them out at arms length and dropped them in. Man, you could see the fish feeding on the bait, that's just how close they were, could hardy believe what I was seeing myself. Then the end reel blasted out, thought it was going to jump right out the stand! I jumped up and grabbed the reel and the rod bent double; what a feeling it was, I will never forget it, I was in love. Got her in; she was about 17 or 18lbs. This was about 8 o'clock; I was getting the hook out of the fish when all hell broke loose. The other 2 reels were off and running as hard as they could go. The sound of the brakes made me jump 2 feet off the ground. Hurriedly I got the fish back in the water and set the hook on another fish, had it on and the other reel was running just as hard as it was at first. Then John, another fisherman, came running to get the other fish for me. Had two more fish around 20lbs on the bank. They had a 20lbs even jackpot, so I carried the two fish. Got one jackpot and missed the other one by an ounce. It went on like this all morning.
There was this one fish that everybody wanted. He looked like a log swimming around out in the water, he was so gray that he looked white, I called him whitely. I had seen him a couple of times this day, and I sat there and hoped that I would get my chance at him on this day. Well my wife and kids had made it down now. She asked me how I was doing, I told her that I was having one of those days that only comes once in a life time, she grinned. My boy looked at me and asked how Daddy was doing, and he was loud, I held my finger up to my mouth and asked if he wanted to see a fish take the bait. My wife said ,PAUL, don't ask him that. I said, You don't believe me do you ?, She said no. So I told them to sit down at the end of my reels and watch. In about 10 mins along came a teenager with his dorsal fin and half his tail out of the water. My boy turned and looked at me and I put my finger back up to my mouth, Him with his eyes so big turned back around to watch the fish. You could see the fish sucking the bait and some of it coming out of his gills as he sucked it in. The fish moved in behind the bait and you could see him suck the sugar pop right in. My girl looked at me and said , Daddy did you see that? I said Yes. About that time the fish tore out and made my girl holler, my boy jumped up and said real loud , Daddy, get him! We got him in; he was about 13 or 14lbs. Now to try to bring this story to an end. Got baited back up and in the water. Landed about 5 or 6 more, then out of nowhere here came whitely the log boy, he was big. My personal best is a 33.4, he made this look small. Man he is coming right to the bait. My Boy, Girl & Wife can't believe what they are seeing, I can't myself. He is coming around to take the bait, he is getting right behind the bait just like all the rest. He is sucking the pop in. Suddenly I heard a chant, "HI PAUL" real loud, and whitely swims off. It's the girl that is running the lake!
The End
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