TRIP TO CARP PARADISE

About three hour drive west of Chicago, almost on the border with an adjoining State of Iowa is beautifully situated, relatively small lake, arising in 1927 in order to provide the water intake for cooling the engines of locomotives traveling thru the western part of the State of Illinois. Who would have thought that by the end of the century this lake will become almost a magical place for carp fishing anglers from State of Illinois, as well as all of the United States and also be visited by European carp fishing anglers? Where this magic and uniqueness of this place came from? In addition to the beautiful grounds this lake holds powerful carp exceeding weight of 40 pounds, and even larger. More than a decade already this opportunity to fish over 40 pound carp, attracts as magnet carp fishing anglers from around the United States.
This lake in the western part of Illinois is like a carp Mecca, a place where at least once in lifetime; mostly local anglers should try to catch "Illinois water Queen".

Our trip was planned already for a month before and carefully matched to our carp time sheet for this 2015 spring season. The end of May is not the best time to make attempts to catch large carp in the lake, because the brittle winter and warm early spring, the spawning period fell on first half of May. Unfortunately we have not been able to organize this trip sooner. It's just a theory and statistics, as earlier years have shown record-breaking specimens were caught, also late spring and summer. The problem in this period is a quickly growing bed of weeds near shores which are a huge hurdle for carp fishing. Friday after work packed and ready to head our way. Another our carp expedition together, but the first on this lake. Pawel has already been there several times in previous years, unfortunately he could not land carp over 30 pounds, but it's always have been a nice time spend there. For Paulo, this is the first carp session on this lake, so he's very excited and full of hope waiting impatiently the moment of departure.

We arrive around 7 in the evening, a little late, because you have to set everything up before nightfall, and most importantly, explore the swims, and choose the place and pre-bait. Unfortunately, within the next hours it started to rain. In the first order we got the pontoon ready, sonar to locate fish and we are departing to scope the water. Knowing that we came only for about 40 hours of fishing, we decided to choose two sites where we will bait lightly and across wider are in order to lure the fish into the area or stop them while patrolling the zone of just behind the line of vegetation. We have picked an area about 30 meters from the bank, just behind the line of very thick, high vegetation, directly in front of the right bay output. We are free of vegetation in this location with hard bottom so we bait there and we set our rigs. This location gave us the possibility of easy continuous baiting from the shore as well as casting out rigs without using the boat.

Second place, with similar characteristics, have been selected on the other side of the lake, approximately 110 meters from the shore, also on the edge of the thick vegetation line. There we set two markers at a distance of approximately 30 meters from each other. We decided to bait some 10 meters from the line of vegetation right between our markers. There already are the largest activity of fish on the sonar, as well as frequent splashes and thick bobbles appearing on the water. The only problem with all this, it is happening in vegetation, so our task and goal of the strategy was to draw fish in the weed to clear pre-baited bottom. There we set our rigs and reel drags are tightened almost to the end, because we are aware that each hooked carp will be run in the greenery and pulling from it the fish, even using the pontoon will be very hard and what we found later will cost us to lose three fish.

As a pre-baiting mix we use cooked corn, to this we add the sweet corn, oats and cut in half K-1 Baits Fruity Peach boilies. Also we bait with a dozen whole boilies in different directions, giving the chances to the carp to find this treat. The idea for such a baiting tactic was implemented because carp in this lake was already after spawning, so we knew that it will be roaming around in search of food. Also the wider baiting strategies were as a result of sonar analysis, which showed fish grouped in a large numbers along the lines of vegetation rather than individual sites, and in this way, we wanted to lure them out from vegetation or stop fish patrolling this area. Helpful were tips from carp angler, who two weeks earlier have caught a lot and large specimens during his 4-day session. On all rods, we used four different combinations. From chod rigs, to snowman, to typical bottom bait rigs and tiger nuts on the hair. We wanted to present our hook bait the best on the carpet bait and also see what will prove best weapon for carp during this session.

The first night was calm and rainy, just about 5:30 in the morning, the alarm signal puts us on a straight legs and we have the first run on Paulo’s rod. Carp, weighing 16lbs 8oz returns back to the water. Waiting game continues on. Another take at 7 am on Paulo’s rod close up and we have the first bigger carp weighing 21lbs 2oz. We have fish in the swim, so we bait some more with boilies only and we look forward to your next carp. 

We did not need to wait long because after only two hours, we finally had a take on Pawel's rod, also up close and carp of identical weight of 21lbs 2oz lends in the net. We acquire ever bigger belief as to the proper choice of this location, confirmed with another run on Pawel's rod an hour later and carp weighing 18lb 10oz. More boilies loosely scattered are added to our swim area. Now, our task was to maintain as long as possible fish in the area by adding small treats to the swim using K-1 Baits flavored Fruity Peach boilies.

Next run, but unfortunately problems start happening because next two fish run straight to wall of vegetation located on the right of our area in the above mentioned bay. Pawel jumps into the pontoon and try to free up the fish from the snag but he is unable to do that successfully. Another two runs and a similar situation and carp swims into weeds where it feels probably the most secure. 

Frustrated we sit down and analyze what we should do in such a situation. One of the decisions is to use longer shock leaders from a thin braid line, which behaves better in contact with vegetation, cutting it as a blade. Also, we tight our reel brakes almost to the end. These changes prove to be very effective because we do not lose any more carp in this way even though still they were running towards weed covered areas. For the rest of the day fish biting subsides and around noon the wind changes, temperature drops and it starts to rain. Gusty winds check the strength of our camp to the borders of durability. 

Everything survived in one piece. At this time, we find that an interesting dependence, as soon as the rain stopped and wind slows, fish bites pick up. Finally, the first run from the rig located on the other side. Not taking any chances, Pawel has jumped on the pontoon and go after the fish, despite all his efforts carp rapidly turns to the left and parks in vegetation. Pawel does not give up and at all costs he tried not to lose the fish, in spite the pontoon propeller not working correctly due to being covered with weeds. It was the hardest fight that he probably ever had. In one hand the rod and in the second paddle, pontoon in nearly two meter long vegetation with carp in the middle. The rain started again and gusty wind started to push me away to the left. In the end Pawel has managed to put this fish in the net and now there is another fight with the wind in order to paddle to the shore. This costs him so much strength but he did it and although carp only 11 pounds with great respect he released it back into the water. Paulo stood on the shore in awe watching this fight with fish, wind, and rain and vegetation. But this is just the beauty of carp angling.

Another fish, one after the other lends in the net with almost precise time of every 30 minutes exactly at the time of relatively calm winds and stopped rain. It only supports our theories as how big factor plays weather conditions even in so short time intervals. All the fish in the range of 12 to 17 pounds. After 5 afternoon wind is already really gusty and the temperature drops completely cutting off fish. Using the window when wind blows weaker we jump on inflatable boat and we add more bait and drop our rigs for the night. We do not give up, with the hope to look forward to the night.

About 9 in the evening Pawel has a steady, slow run on his rod which was set far away. He knows that this may be a sign of a large fish, in order not to make same mistake and let fish go into vegetation he is holding it and keeping it in the open water. He jumped on the pontoon and go after it, playing carefully he managed to put the fish in the net. This is a big fish. Very happy, Pawel swims back to the shore and pass landing net to Paulo, tying the boat we go to weight the fish. At first glance, the carp is a huge, our heart beat harder, we had a feeling that this fish will be over magical limit of 30 pounds, but also something was telling us that it will not be as big. Hmmm, unfortunately weight scale shows 27 pounds, well still a big fish and the largest of the expedition. We put the fish in the keep sack and put in the water awaiting morning photo session.

About 2:30am we catch another fish with a weight of 24 lbs 1oz and around 5 am the next fish with a weight of 18 lbs, and if someone has unplugged the cord, fish bites stop completely. Knowing that we have a few hours left we change our rigs, we add more bait. Nothing again. We change the target area. Nothing. We try different combinations of rigs, bait, as well as completely different area but still nothing. Well, something had to very negatively influence on feeding carp. 

We go to pick up the markers and we take a look at sonar, the temperature of the water which was at 73 F on Friday night declined to 67 F in the day of departure, also we could not see that larger number of fish in the swim as we saw earlier. After analysis we come to the conclusion that the reason why there was no fish, was a violent change in the weather and mainly the winds and air temperatures, which with 74 F fell to 44 F on Saturday night. Not a big body of water as this lake is, weather can have dramatic impact on the behavior of fish. Luckily with every hour weather gets better, the sun comes out, the temperature goes up, and so we have great conditions to pack our tents. On the other hand, we feel anger internally, because of that tricky weather conditions we have experienced. About 3 pm we pull our rods from the water, we pack up and we are going back home.

Despite the variables as well as difficult weather conditions which we had in just 40 hours of fishing, it seems to us that we reached a good result lending 11 carp including 4 carp over 20 pounds, and losing only 4 fish. Taking into account that we were about 2 weeks after spawning, we are really pleased with this session. We had a good tactic, which we have stack by and it brought us results, maybe not what we expected but it was close. Still, the "Water Queen of Illinois” swims in the waters of this beautiful lake, and with bag of new experiences we depart and say goodbye with a promise to come back to this magical place again

We would like to thank the company K-1 Baits for high quality bait and hook bait, which we have used during this session. About 10lbs of K-1 Baits Fruity Peach boilies was used to attract carp to our swim. Also hook baits which were very effective are, K-1 Baits Tiger Nuts flavored with pineapple and sweet scented Fruity Peach and K-1 Baits pop up 12 mm with the taste of garlic, all those hook baits helped us in good and fruitful session.