How To: Carp Fishing In Sydney

On Sunday, Carolyn and I booked in for the carp control program at Centennial Park, in Sydney.  A picture perfect day, weather wise. I rigged up a couple of our light 6-pound combos, dropped them in the rod pod, cranked up the volume on the bite alarms and settled back for a coffee and a catch up with Tony, our host for the morning:

The fishing started slowly, but Tony wasn’t worried because the barometer on his car dashboard was predicting a good one. A couple of smallish fish hooked up and were brought to the bank easily, then the real action started. Check this 12 second video of a carp run:

Having opened the account it was Carolyn’s turn and as with everything else, my little cookie cutter didn’t disappoint:

We had hopes of hooking up one of the really big fish – 15 kilos, or more – but that wasn’t to be. However, I was very fortunate to tie on to a solid one, which gave me a real work out:

This carp tipped the scales at 9.5 kilos:

The light combo performed magnificently:

I had an absolute ball on Sunday. Whatever else you might say about European carp, there's no denying they go hard. And where else are you going to consistently hook up to 20-pound fish, in the middle of Australia's biggest city? Being able to do it as a family (or, husband and wife) event is the icing on the cake.

Thanks to Tony for a fantastic day, looking forward to the next one already