As the fall came on too quickly I felt I had to fit one last carp session in this season. My first thought was to have another go at Ballasjön in Bollebygd, as me and a mate had been there a couple of weeks before and that turned out nice. Unfortunately my mate couldn’t come this time due to his family needing him more than the fish did. I knew that Chris Thornhill used to fish Ballasjön and I sent him an e-mail asking if he was up for a weekend-session. Chris was up for a weekend, but not in Ballasjön and he asked me if wanted to fish Härlanda tjärn instead and of course I was up for it.
Friday evening saw me struggling to find my way out of a crowded Göteborg where I’d left my girlfriend, and as I pulled into the carpark to meet up with Chris the light was fading fast. We packed all the gear we could fit into Chris’s purpose-designed trolley and off we went. Everything didn’t fit in the trolley though and we had a lot of help from Daniel Svalsjö and Diver Mats to carry everything to the swim….thanks a bunch boys! The chosen swim was called “Big Hällen” and it was quite a walk from the carpark. When we eventually got there the darkness had laid itself upon us, but luckily enough Chris had brought his 12V-system…and soon there were light! We got our stuff sorted out and over the first beer out of many we started to get our tackle ready.
My approach was to fish all my rods in the margins, on two particle-baited spots. My homemade parti-blend consisted of: hemp, sunflower seeds, wheat, oat, maize, chick peas and black beans that had been cooked in very sugary water and left to ferment for about 3 weeks…..ask my girlfriend how that smells!
I planned to fish method feeders on all three rods, two on the baited spots and one off the spots and further out. After mixing groundbait and getting the rigs into the water I decided that the spodding had to wait until the morning as it was too dark to get it right. With the rigs in place we put up our bivvies and packed everything away inside.
We had some beer and just laid back waiting for the action. I pulled out a maxi-bag of peanuts and asked if anybody wanted to have some, but neither Chris nor Jeanette did. Some sandwiches were followed by an unknown number of beers and as the night crept along we decided it was time to make a fire. During this time we all got a bit more unsteady and as the nice guy I am I kept asking Chris if he wanted some peanuts, but still he didn’t (I wonder why?). We gathered some logs and built us a decent fire, and by the time we were done Jeanette had fallen asleep in the bivvie.
Chris and I enjoyed the fire and some more beer, I also enjoyed some more out of my maxi-bag of peanuts…and of course kept asking Chris “if you want some peanuts…” I woke up after a short nap in my chair in front of the fire and saw Chris sleeping like a baby in his chair as well. I woke him up and we went to our bivvies.
I woke up way too early by a crow shouting his lungs out in the tree above my bivvie. As I have a hard time going back to sleep after I’m woken, I set my sights on getting the spots baited up instead. I got my spod-rod out and baited up the two spots with about two kilos each and rebaited my method-rigs. The boilies I used on all rigs were the Dynamite Baits “Frank Warwick - HiAttract”-range, birdfood based with the flavour “Strawberry & Ice Cream”. All runs for me and my mate in Ballasjön came to these boilies, so I was confident that it would work.
After a while Fredrik Palm came along with his son Isac on his arm and Sigge “the dog” on a leash. Palm had been fishing the lake the week before and he told me that most of the fish this season had come to single baits fished at distance in the middle of the lake.
He also told me he had seen fish jumping straight out of the water this morning. His suggestion was to fish a single hookbait with a stringer far out in the middle of the lake. I had borrowed new braided lines from a mate to test if they matched my rods or not, and I only had about 150 meters of line on each spool and couldn’t get my baits out there in the middle. As I didn’t want to totally abandon my plan and take my rigs off the baited spots, I reeled my “off the spots”-rod in and cut the feeder off.
I tied a bolt-rig with a simple safety-clip and rubber with a rigtube and a four ounce dumpy pear lead. A 6 inch piece of “Camo Skin” -hooklength with a “Raptor”- hook in size 4, and 5mm of the coating stripped close to the hook. A flouro-pink popup in the “Strawberry & Ice Cream”- flavour was put on the hair and balanced with putty so that it was critically balanced. To top it up I made up a few small funnel-web sausages with crushed boilies in the same flavour as the hookbait and troutpellets in 5mm and 3mm.
I aimed at the place where Palm had seen the carp and whacked my rig out, making sure I was well away from the baited spots.
Filled with confidence that the carp wouldn’t be able to resist my bait if they came by, I was sure that my strategy would work. I hoped for the particles to draw the carp in and if they were on the feed I would catch on the method in the margins, and if any carp were drawn in but were too suspicious to get on the spot it would be more likely they picked up my single-bait-trap.
Chris and Jeanette woke up after a while and started rebaiting their rigs as well. They opted for single boosted bottombaits and popups over a scattering of boilies just as they had done the night before.
Jeanette made a superb greasy old English breakfast and we just sat back, digesting our food (which took a while), talking about all or nothing and had a beer or two….of course! Later on I went to pick up my girlfriend Helena at the busstop, she had spent the night in Göteborg and was now joining us for her first carp session ever.
We got back to the camp and awaited the night to come. We had a barbeque with lovely skewers made up by Jeanette, and then it was time to digest the food again which we did by the fire along with a lot of bullshit and beer. I fell asleep sitting up by the fire at 23:00 and Helena thought it was time to hit the sack. All night Chris had kept calling me “peanuts” because of my habit of asking him if he wanted some peanuts.
The night passed without any action in our swim. Svalsjö on the other hand caught a 5,9kg mirror in the middle of the night in the swim next to ours. I woke up around 8 with an urge to “water the grass” but I wasn’t too keen on getting up as the bed was too warm and comfortable with my girlfriend in it. I spent about half an hour laying in bed thinking about how it would feel to go back home without as much as a nibble on my hookbaits. The thought didn’t make me feel too happy as I had driven 300 km one way to get to this lake, and I knew this was my last chance to catch a carp this year.
As I was lying there feeling sorry for myself thinking of getting up my middle rod screamed out in stereo “PIP-PIP” from both buzzer and sounderbox….suddenly adrenaline was flowing through my veins and the hair on my arms stood right out as the buzzer continued PIP-PIP-PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP …Screamer! Before I knew it I was bent over my pod, grabbing my rod and pulled into a CARP!
From self-pity to this, a carp in the other end of my line, rod bent like hell and the blood pumping like crazy.
As I stood there enjoying the action I suddenly realised I didn’t have any shoes on, that’s just the way it is with this fishing. From 0 to 100 in a split second, and that’s why I love every bit of it.
She put up quite a fight and Chris, who had been woken up by my stereo Fox-disco, guessed it was a good fish. I had to haul her through a good amount of lilies and I sent a thankful thought to my mate who had lent me the braided mainlines.
As she came closer and pumped the water to foam I came to the conclusion that my PB might be in danger. Chris was ready with the net as the carp came closer, she made a few attempts to go free but was stopped by the clutch….shimano-style! As I gently slid her over the net I was sure that it was a new PB.
As I looked down into the net I saw a big old common, a fish that I had seen before in a picture in Chris’s arms. I shouted to him, “It’s your fish mate”! Chris claims that I was just mumbling “It’s a big one, It´s a big one, It´s a big one…..”which is probably true!
Despite my shaking legs I managed to get her onto the unhookingmat and into a sling. On the scales she went, and as I saw it pull round…passing 11kg (my PB) I almost couldn´t take it!
…..11,1….11,2…..11,3….11,4….11,5..11,52kg. I couldn´t believe I had just beaten my own PB that I caught in Holland last spring. I got her into a sack and still just in my socks I took her out to deeper water, then we got everything set for the photo session. When everything was set I got her out of the sack, then Chris and Helena took turns taking pictures. This is by far the best looking carp I’ve caught so far in my carping career: dark sides, golden belly and just the right proportions….the stuff that dreams are made of. Helena is a photographer and I was glad that she was there just then and that she got to see, and photograph, a carp in real life. Because she sure as hell has heard a whole lot about them, and to be honest she has doubted my sanity once or twice sitting at the kitchen table tying rigs in the middle of winter.
Both Chris and Helena took some really great pictures, I thank you with all my heart for that. After the photo session I kissed her goodbye and released her into the shallows. Watching her swim away I knew she would light up my winter for long time.
Chris was sure that this carp was the same as he’d caught the previous season at 11,4kg, and because it now was 11,52kg we figured it to be the lake common-carp-record. I was very pleased to know this but it turned out later that Janne Bohlin had caught a common at 11,8kg this spring that qualifies as the record, congrats Janne!
After I got my baits back out I got the sms´s flowing and just sat back enjoying the moment, trying to stop shaking. Chris said that since nobody had named the beautiful common we had to think of a name, and what could be more appropriate than Chris’s nickname for me “Peanuts”!
We eventually made another greasy English breakfast, topped with a cup of coffee or two. The day passed by without any action and I felt I could go home at any time and still be satisfied with this weekend. We eventually packed up and it was with a big old smile on my face I drove the 300k’s back home to Norrköping.
Thank you Chris and Jeanette for a great weekend, I’m sure I’ll be back next season looking to catch some fabulous carp….as well as bullshit & beer of course!!!
Cheers // Anders Reutermo
Friday evening saw me struggling to find my way out of a crowded Göteborg where I’d left my girlfriend, and as I pulled into the carpark to meet up with Chris the light was fading fast. We packed all the gear we could fit into Chris’s purpose-designed trolley and off we went. Everything didn’t fit in the trolley though and we had a lot of help from Daniel Svalsjö and Diver Mats to carry everything to the swim….thanks a bunch boys! The chosen swim was called “Big Hällen” and it was quite a walk from the carpark. When we eventually got there the darkness had laid itself upon us, but luckily enough Chris had brought his 12V-system…and soon there were light! We got our stuff sorted out and over the first beer out of many we started to get our tackle ready.
My approach was to fish all my rods in the margins, on two particle-baited spots. My homemade parti-blend consisted of: hemp, sunflower seeds, wheat, oat, maize, chick peas and black beans that had been cooked in very sugary water and left to ferment for about 3 weeks…..ask my girlfriend how that smells!
I planned to fish method feeders on all three rods, two on the baited spots and one off the spots and further out. After mixing groundbait and getting the rigs into the water I decided that the spodding had to wait until the morning as it was too dark to get it right. With the rigs in place we put up our bivvies and packed everything away inside.
We had some beer and just laid back waiting for the action. I pulled out a maxi-bag of peanuts and asked if anybody wanted to have some, but neither Chris nor Jeanette did. Some sandwiches were followed by an unknown number of beers and as the night crept along we decided it was time to make a fire. During this time we all got a bit more unsteady and as the nice guy I am I kept asking Chris if he wanted some peanuts, but still he didn’t (I wonder why?). We gathered some logs and built us a decent fire, and by the time we were done Jeanette had fallen asleep in the bivvie.
Chris and I enjoyed the fire and some more beer, I also enjoyed some more out of my maxi-bag of peanuts…and of course kept asking Chris “if you want some peanuts…” I woke up after a short nap in my chair in front of the fire and saw Chris sleeping like a baby in his chair as well. I woke him up and we went to our bivvies.
I woke up way too early by a crow shouting his lungs out in the tree above my bivvie. As I have a hard time going back to sleep after I’m woken, I set my sights on getting the spots baited up instead. I got my spod-rod out and baited up the two spots with about two kilos each and rebaited my method-rigs. The boilies I used on all rigs were the Dynamite Baits “Frank Warwick - HiAttract”-range, birdfood based with the flavour “Strawberry & Ice Cream”. All runs for me and my mate in Ballasjön came to these boilies, so I was confident that it would work.
After a while Fredrik Palm came along with his son Isac on his arm and Sigge “the dog” on a leash. Palm had been fishing the lake the week before and he told me that most of the fish this season had come to single baits fished at distance in the middle of the lake.
He also told me he had seen fish jumping straight out of the water this morning. His suggestion was to fish a single hookbait with a stringer far out in the middle of the lake. I had borrowed new braided lines from a mate to test if they matched my rods or not, and I only had about 150 meters of line on each spool and couldn’t get my baits out there in the middle. As I didn’t want to totally abandon my plan and take my rigs off the baited spots, I reeled my “off the spots”-rod in and cut the feeder off.
I tied a bolt-rig with a simple safety-clip and rubber with a rigtube and a four ounce dumpy pear lead. A 6 inch piece of “Camo Skin” -hooklength with a “Raptor”- hook in size 4, and 5mm of the coating stripped close to the hook. A flouro-pink popup in the “Strawberry & Ice Cream”- flavour was put on the hair and balanced with putty so that it was critically balanced. To top it up I made up a few small funnel-web sausages with crushed boilies in the same flavour as the hookbait and troutpellets in 5mm and 3mm.
I aimed at the place where Palm had seen the carp and whacked my rig out, making sure I was well away from the baited spots.
Filled with confidence that the carp wouldn’t be able to resist my bait if they came by, I was sure that my strategy would work. I hoped for the particles to draw the carp in and if they were on the feed I would catch on the method in the margins, and if any carp were drawn in but were too suspicious to get on the spot it would be more likely they picked up my single-bait-trap.
Chris and Jeanette woke up after a while and started rebaiting their rigs as well. They opted for single boosted bottombaits and popups over a scattering of boilies just as they had done the night before.
Jeanette made a superb greasy old English breakfast and we just sat back, digesting our food (which took a while), talking about all or nothing and had a beer or two….of course! Later on I went to pick up my girlfriend Helena at the busstop, she had spent the night in Göteborg and was now joining us for her first carp session ever.
We got back to the camp and awaited the night to come. We had a barbeque with lovely skewers made up by Jeanette, and then it was time to digest the food again which we did by the fire along with a lot of bullshit and beer. I fell asleep sitting up by the fire at 23:00 and Helena thought it was time to hit the sack. All night Chris had kept calling me “peanuts” because of my habit of asking him if he wanted some peanuts.
The night passed without any action in our swim. Svalsjö on the other hand caught a 5,9kg mirror in the middle of the night in the swim next to ours. I woke up around 8 with an urge to “water the grass” but I wasn’t too keen on getting up as the bed was too warm and comfortable with my girlfriend in it. I spent about half an hour laying in bed thinking about how it would feel to go back home without as much as a nibble on my hookbaits. The thought didn’t make me feel too happy as I had driven 300 km one way to get to this lake, and I knew this was my last chance to catch a carp this year.
As I was lying there feeling sorry for myself thinking of getting up my middle rod screamed out in stereo “PIP-PIP” from both buzzer and sounderbox….suddenly adrenaline was flowing through my veins and the hair on my arms stood right out as the buzzer continued PIP-PIP-PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP …Screamer! Before I knew it I was bent over my pod, grabbing my rod and pulled into a CARP!
From self-pity to this, a carp in the other end of my line, rod bent like hell and the blood pumping like crazy.
As I stood there enjoying the action I suddenly realised I didn’t have any shoes on, that’s just the way it is with this fishing. From 0 to 100 in a split second, and that’s why I love every bit of it.
She put up quite a fight and Chris, who had been woken up by my stereo Fox-disco, guessed it was a good fish. I had to haul her through a good amount of lilies and I sent a thankful thought to my mate who had lent me the braided mainlines.
As she came closer and pumped the water to foam I came to the conclusion that my PB might be in danger. Chris was ready with the net as the carp came closer, she made a few attempts to go free but was stopped by the clutch….shimano-style! As I gently slid her over the net I was sure that it was a new PB.
As I looked down into the net I saw a big old common, a fish that I had seen before in a picture in Chris’s arms. I shouted to him, “It’s your fish mate”! Chris claims that I was just mumbling “It’s a big one, It´s a big one, It´s a big one…..”which is probably true!
Despite my shaking legs I managed to get her onto the unhookingmat and into a sling. On the scales she went, and as I saw it pull round…passing 11kg (my PB) I almost couldn´t take it!
…..11,1….11,2…..11,3….11,4….11,5..11,52kg. I couldn´t believe I had just beaten my own PB that I caught in Holland last spring. I got her into a sack and still just in my socks I took her out to deeper water, then we got everything set for the photo session. When everything was set I got her out of the sack, then Chris and Helena took turns taking pictures. This is by far the best looking carp I’ve caught so far in my carping career: dark sides, golden belly and just the right proportions….the stuff that dreams are made of. Helena is a photographer and I was glad that she was there just then and that she got to see, and photograph, a carp in real life. Because she sure as hell has heard a whole lot about them, and to be honest she has doubted my sanity once or twice sitting at the kitchen table tying rigs in the middle of winter.
Both Chris and Helena took some really great pictures, I thank you with all my heart for that. After the photo session I kissed her goodbye and released her into the shallows. Watching her swim away I knew she would light up my winter for long time.
Chris was sure that this carp was the same as he’d caught the previous season at 11,4kg, and because it now was 11,52kg we figured it to be the lake common-carp-record. I was very pleased to know this but it turned out later that Janne Bohlin had caught a common at 11,8kg this spring that qualifies as the record, congrats Janne!
After I got my baits back out I got the sms´s flowing and just sat back enjoying the moment, trying to stop shaking. Chris said that since nobody had named the beautiful common we had to think of a name, and what could be more appropriate than Chris’s nickname for me “Peanuts”!
We eventually made another greasy English breakfast, topped with a cup of coffee or two. The day passed by without any action and I felt I could go home at any time and still be satisfied with this weekend. We eventually packed up and it was with a big old smile on my face I drove the 300k’s back home to Norrköping.
Thank you Chris and Jeanette for a great weekend, I’m sure I’ll be back next season looking to catch some fabulous carp….as well as bullshit & beer of course!!!
Cheers // Anders Reutermo
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