Landed Two New Personal Best Common Carps Today

Spring weather finally arrived in Michigan this weekend. With temperatures in the 70's and sunny, I could not resist heading out for some carp fishing. I had a nice session hooking 5, landing 4 and achieving 2 personal bests within 45 minutes. I probably would have improved my personal best a third time today, but we lost a very large 3rd fish a mere inch or 2 from the net.

My wife did a great job capturing these pictures.

Sterling State Park, 8 a.m.

Another view

Baiting up

The first cast

Resistance Tackle sling with our 3rd catch of the day...a new personal best for me



20 pounder caught on maize and fake maize

Landing this hog was quite an adventure. After the initial runs and fighting for about 4 minutes the crank knob of my reel broke off. I was determined to land the fish, because by this time I knew it was pretty big. I kept the rod tip up and cranked the best I could with the remaining handle on the reel. It was slow going, but steady as the fish tired a little.



Fighting a big common carp



Metallica Net with another personal best

Second personal best in 45 minutes at 24 pounds 11 ounces

I caught this fish on a pink double pop-up dumbbell. Pink has been very good to me recently. I want to make sure I have plenty of these dumbbells for the tournament next week in Holland, MI.

Releasing the big boy to grow even bigger for someone else to enjoy catching later on

This picture turned out very well. I enjoy catching these big freshwater carp, but it's even more satisfying to snap a few pictures and then release them back for someone else to catch again. Who knows...it might even grow a bit more!

I don't know what it is with me an northern pike recently, but there were at least 15 to 20 small ones darting back and forth in front of me today and knocking into my lines a lot. It was fun watching them. We've even got some decent pictures of them.

I have two more pictures from today of some smaller 9 and 10 pound fish. Somehow it just doesn't seem right to post them in comparison to these beauties.