CarpQuest – S2E10 – Chatfield Carp Fishing – Fear of the Dark

In this episode of CarpQuest we go on our first night fishing trip, destination, Chatfield Reservoir, CO.

Arriving just before dusk we setup at the usual swim as a thunderstorm moved off into the distance. Ron walked an underwater camera out into the water to see if we could catch sight of any fish. We cast out, put our feet up and sat back to watch the amazing sights of the Rocky Mountains in twilight.

It was just after 9pm.

The white chocolate boilies had barely been in the water for five minutes when the Delkim bite alarm screamed with a fast take, run lights flickering brightly into the dark. The battle was on! Line peeled off against the drag and the fish took a good fifty yards before slowing from that initial powerful run. In the darkness I found it difficult to see the angle of the line to water which made bringing it back in harder than I had expected. Only in the dark do you appreciate how many visual clues you rely upon when playing a fish.

Early into the fight I could tell this was a good sized fish for Chatfield, though I was not 100% certain it was actually a carp; in the back of my mind I was thinking, it’s a channel catfish. The run was straight out from the bank with very little sideways action. Carp at this venue are notorious for kiting to the side and then straight into the bank, the shallows, gravel and rocks.

After about five minutes I had the fish in close and Ron waded out with a net. We could finally see those welcoming carpy scales glittering in the torch light – moments later the fish was in the net. We placed the carp in the cradle and could at last see this was a good common carp capture for Chatfield. The average carp from this venue runs around 10 to 11 pounds with both commons and mirrors. There are many nice mid to upper doubles and more rarely a 20. This was a very long, slender, healthy looking male. He weighed in at 24 lbs, 8 oz on the Heaton scales and was an impressive 36” in length.

Tight-Lines,
John
CarpQuest

This video features music by: Teknoaxe: http://www.youtube.com/teknoaxe

Royalty free music and free to use with express written permission for commercial use.

Tackle and Baits featured in this video are available from: www.bigcarptackle.com