Photo credit: Amazon.com |
For every carp I landed, I probably had at least 2 or 3 break offs. I had a very good trip to Ann Arbor where I was catching carp left and right, but my day would have been so much better if I had landed the ones which broke off before I got them to the bank.
I suspected my knots were the weak point at first, but after concentrating on tying the Palomar knot with purpose I realized that I wasn't losing fish to weak knots. I was losing them to abrasions and snags. Fish are actually pretty smart once they are hooked. They head to the nearest available cover in an attempt to "get away" and that usually takes them over some rough patches hidden to the eye. Submerged tree branches, tree stumps, rocks, boulders, concrete, etc. are likely candidates depending on the body of water. Many of those submerged obstacles are covered with zebra mussels, which will slice through monofilament fishing line like butter.
A fishing buddy suggested that I try spooling my reels with Power Pro braided fishing line to remedy the problem. I headed to Dick's Sporting Goods and purchased 300 yards of 50 pound line.
Photo credit: Amazon.com |
Photo credit: Amazon.com |
It could be that now I have a little more experience fighting the carp, my skills have improved, and I'm not "man handling" the fish as much causing stress on the line and contributing to the breaks myself.
At any rate, the braided line hasn't hurt anything either. In fact, over the winter I am going to spool my reels with some fresh Power Pro. I found it on sale yesterday for a buy one, get one 50% off at Dick's. They only had two packets of the green 50 pound left on the shelf or I would have picked up a few more packs. I'll stick to the standard stuff for now.
And I'll offer this disclaimer for anyone who reads this and feels that I am endorsing one brand over another...My personal best common carp (17.0 pounds) was actually caught on monofilament. It's the fish in the header photo at the top of this blog page.
Here's a picture of another nice fish I caught at the Detroit River in October; also on monofilament.
Detroit River common carp |
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