Carp On The Fly On THe SUP: Event Horizon

The finale to Carp On The Fly On The SUP is finally up on Youtube. It took so long because I wanted to get this one just right - and I am extremely happy with it. I really wanted to try and get across how it FEELS to catch carp on the fly.  How did I do?

CARPTORIOUS: November to Remember

I have caught hundreds and hundreds of carp since starting Fly-Carpin.  I have posted about quite a few of them.  At some point, however,we have all been here before.  I saw a carp.  I cast at a carp. The presentation was perfect, I timed it just right and I caught the carp.  

Nevertheless I need to write about this November.  I need to write in order to remember.  To remember the differences.

You see, after you have done this long enough, carpin is like the movie Groundhog Day.  Everything repeats over and over, except everything is actually just a little different every time.  If you look hard enough you find that every single year is different.  Every month, every day and every single carp is different.  

This carp was resting with three others 15 feet from the bank in the back eddy of a small seam in 8" of water.  It was the smallest of the bunch, but because it was between me and it's bigger brethren it was the best shot.  Nothing new, except I had never seen a single carp in this section of river. Evidently construction had driven a well-know pod of carp downstream from their normal holding water.  

That is not all that was different though.  As usual I presented the fly with a drag and drop.  The current was a little more energetic than I expected though, and the fly ended up landing a good 6" upstream of where I wanted it.  Then things got a little crazy as this carp charged the fly with summer-like vigor as soon as it hit bottom.  That is certainly unusual in November, but to my surprise she somehow changed her mind and put on the breaks.  I usually avoid the term he or she for carp - but this was clearly a she.  Changing her mind is, after all, a females prerogative. 

And this is where everything is different.  Just a year ago I would have stripped the fly, or twitched the fly, or wiggled the fly.  I would have somethinged the fly in a desperate attempt to re-capture the magic.  I would have failed.  This time I just left the fly (a Chubby Chaser Leech) sitting there on the bottom, tail up and gently wiggling in the current.  A split second passed, and then another and finally an eternity as she held in position and carefully inspected my fly.  Then my fly just disappeared. 

 

This carp above was circulating in a clear pool.  I must have presented the same fly to it 15 times.  On the sixteenth it just swam through the fly and ate it so quickly and subtly that if I didn't see the fly go in it's mouth I would have never known.

This one was tailing in inches of water in a sewer outlet where I have never seen a carp.  The carp was so shallow that when it charged it threw a wake.  Feeding all those crazy primordial belly scales must make it hungry.

I was blind jigging my fly a couple of inches off the bottom in a deep run next to the bank as a steady stream of carp swam by.  I never saw the take, or the carp for that matter, but it actually worked and my line just came tight.

As much as everything is the same, it is always different.  I will remember.

Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 5

Not only was this my biggest carp of 2014 (so far), it was one of the best takes I have ever gotten, and it all went down on my Standamaran SUP.

For some details - You may notice that the carp initially starts to swim towards something that is NOT my fly (a Sculpin Helmet McLuvin).  I actually believe that the fish had detected the disturbance my fly was making during the drag part of the drag and drop and was moving towards that disturbance to investigate.  That is an aggressive carp!!!!  Way more aggro than I am used to around here.

At the time of course, all I knew is that it was not moving towards my fly, so I popped my fly a little off the bottom and then let it drop still.  The carp noticed my fly at that point and turned slightly to the left and accelerated to attack.  Sight fishing?  In clear water?  From a SUP?  To an 18lb carp? That attacks your fly like a bass?  And then smokes your drag?  Life doesn't get much cooler than that.

Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 4

In this latest video I landed one of my biggest mirror carp ever and at that time it was the biggest carp of the year.  That is awesome in an of itself - but what is even cooler is that this carp was a topwater sunner in chest deep water.  This was essentially an open water sunner - which are often virtually impossible on foot.  I made the Standamaran SUP with the intention of being able to target carp in different scenarios - and here is one example of how it worked out.  

Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 3

Somebody recently asked me if Standup Paddleboards are the future of carpin.  I think that may be pushing it, but they certainly open up new waters, opportunities and scenarios for catching carp on flies, and that is why I made my Standamaran SUP last winter.

In Episode 3 of "Carp On The Fly On The SUP" I hook a decent ~12 to 13lb carp tailing on a small sand flat surrounded by waste deep water that is extremely difficult to access on foot.  I would have never had a shot at this fish without a SUP - and it was a really fun fish to catch.  

Note:  If you look carefully you can see a much much bigger fish tailing in the background that I never noticed in person because I saw this fish first and got focused.  A MUCH bigger fish.  I just noticed it.  And yes, I cried.

Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 2

In this episode of Carp On The Fly On The SUP, Chris Galvin got in on the action with a rented SUP.  It was his first time ever on a SUP - let alone fly fishing from one, and he landed a total beast of an 18b carp.  He also fell in in the process.  For the record I was laughing with him not at him.

Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 1

This September I had a brief two week window where I was catching some very good sized carp in an area of waste deep flooded brush from my Standamaran.  It took me a while to get around to blogging about it because I was lucky enough to get some of my best go-pro footage yet chasing these carp and it took some time to edit the video.

This is the first episode in a series of videos about the experience:

As you can probably tell, it was really challenging to land these carp.  I ended up using mainy 1x  and cranking my drag down and sticking it to these fish from the second I hooked them.  If you showed mercy - any mercy at all - they would destroy you.  

For the most part I was using black leech patterns like Chubby Charsers and Martin's Carp Bitters.

CARPTIORIOUS: When The Fat Lady Sings

When it snowed Friday morning I was ready to mail in the season.  Picture a grown man in the fetal position crying in the corner while sucking his thumb.  Pathetic.  Being a carper I did what carpers do though.  I scraped myself off the floor and hit the water, because, like, you never know. Right? Right?

And when it comes to carp you really never do know.  Their active temperature range is so beyond any other freshwater game-fish that sometimes we sell them short.  Yes, even after catching carp in the last 32 straight months I sometimes under-estimate them.  By the time I walked up to a local pond Friday morning it was a frigid 41 degrees, and I really just thought I was out for a glorified walk.  But there it was, a tail.  And another.  And several fish feeding lethargically on top.  What.  The.  Hell.

I didn't manage to catch any of those fish - but eventually I did manage to catch A fish - and on a day like that? Snow in the morning, carp in the afternoon?  Dig it.

There it is though.  Snow.  Yikes.  Is it time?  Is the season over?  Well, I for one am not quite ready, and just two days later it was definitely NOT snowing.  85 and sunny, so I loaded up the Standamaran and hit the flats this afternoon.  

Yeah - the season may be on the way out.  The fat lady is probably humming but that's OK, because I am tone deaf.  No.  Really.  I am honest to goodness tone deaf.   So to heck with the fat lady.

CAPRTORIOUS: Youth

I look back when I was 15 and I remember - I was an absolute fish catching machine.  Adaptable, intuitive and infinitely creative at lightning speed.

Nowadays I still innovate but at a much more deliberate pace.  For example - I worked on a totally new and very unique leader system for 6 months this winter.  I caught over 30 fish on it without a single leader failure and didn't come close to needing a new leader in that time but still feel like it could use a little work. Sigh.  It is what it is.

This past Friday I got to re-live the flexibility of youth through observation when Zach Drazner, a 15 year old from Idaho, flew out to fish with me for a day.  He was the winner of the DTU fish with McTage auction, and just oozed energy and determination.  Within 24 hours of winning the auction he had tickets.  Within 48 hours he was on the ground in Denver eager and willing and so full of naive belief in my skills that he never appeared to have a single tiny shred of doubt that we were going to catch a ton of carp.

I sure am glad he was optimistic, because I was a little worried!  Rain, rain and more rain. Earlier in the week we received one of the longest deluges I can ever remember in July in Denver.  It rained for over 30 hours straight.  Un. Heard. Of. Everything was jacked.  The river was blown.  Most lakes were chocolate milk, over-flowing and had algae blooms because of the influx of lawn fertilizer thrown in for good measure.

Well, there is nothing more important than faith when it comes to fly fishing for carp and somewhere in his carry-on Zach brought enough faith for the both of us.  I'm not saying we caught the heck out of them but given the conditions we had a very very respectable day.

Zach's Second Ever Carp on The Fly!

Correctly using the butt-section.  Nice!

Your's truly getting in on the action

A picture perfect presentation

One fish stands out in particular because it high-lighted the full awe inspiring intuitive leap of a 15 year old's fishing mind in it's full glory. About mid-day we arrived at one of my favorite lakes to find an interesting situation. This particular lake had a massive scum-line created by the recent rains and there were several carp clooping methodically through the scum.

I call these carp scum-suckers and I have a really reliable method for catching them.  IF you can get within dapping distance and IF you can do a suspended dap of a black fly (any old black fly will do) about an inch under the scum within 6 inches of the carps eye it just works. The carp will almost always back up, drop from view, accelerate to full speed and crush your fly as hard or harder than a carp ever has. It is pretty fun, and I was pretty confident it was going to work for the simple fact that I had stopped at this lake and caught two carp with that exact method at dawn on the way to pick Zach up at the airport.

Break Of Dawn Scum-Sucking Carp on Suspended Dap

Now, when we got there later in the day, none of the cloopers was close enough to shore for the suspended dap to work.  It was like they knew my evil scheme to get Zach into some easy carp and were determined to taunt me.  Well, while my old curmudgeon brain was cursing our luck as we watched a carp happily slurping top 30 feet away, Zach's young mind was leaping ahead.  He looked and me and very very politely asked if he could try one of his "new dragons" - to which I naturally shrugged and said - "sure, whatever".  In my book the difference between a scum sucker at 10 feet and one at 30 is the difference between one of the easiest patterns I know of and the hardest.

It turned out that "new dragons" meant one of the absolutely beautiful Hopes Dragons he had just gotten in the mail from CarpPro the night before.   The first cast was a little wide but the second cast was nearly perfect - and wouldn't you know it, that Hope's Dragon floats like a cork.  For about three casts, and then it sinks slowly!  How did he know?  He just did.  With just a small 8 inch strip he was able to place the fly perfectly in the path of that carp - and wouldn't you know it, that carp made a bee-line for the fly and sucked it in like it's life depended on it.  Wouldn't you know it.  Well, to be perfectly honest - No, I wouldn't.  I would have bet 50 bucks that wasn't going to work. I LOVE being wrong because it was one of the coolest presentations and takes I have ever seen.

Hope's Dragon from the 2013 Fly Swap

Zach Hooked up On a Clooping Carp

Mouth full o Dragon

It was just fabulous - and in the end I think the student may have taught the master a new trick. Of course, this old dog showed him a trick or two of his own...

Thanks for coming out Zach!

Standamaran: Maiden Voyage

In my last post about the Standamaran DIY SUP project (Click here for the full history) I had declared it "good enough". After a good forty plus hours of work spread over 5 calendar months I was really anxious to try it out.  Unfortunately, I awoke on my day off to the sound of 15 MPH winds caressing the trees in my back yard.   

I have never been on a surf-board.  I have never been on a stand-up paddleboard.  I have barely been on a kayak, and I tried standing up in that for about 3 seconds before heading to shore to change my underwear.  There was no way in hell I was going to try standing up on this thing the first time in 15mph winds.  Dammit.  I was just going to have to go carpin until the winds died down.  Dammit.  I hate carpin.  Dammit.  Sarcasm is sooooooo lost on the Internet. Dammit, I just recently watched the newest Star Trek Movie and it seems to have affected my vocabulary. Dammit Jim I'm a carper not a writer.

It was a heck of a good day to be hitting the water though.  Better for carpin than standamaran-ing, that is for sure.  In just a few short hours I was well on my way to a double digit day of catching carp on flies.  

That put me in a bit of a pickle. Double digit days are HARD to come by in Colorado.  Should I continue fishing or break out the SUP?   Fortunately the clouds rolled in and saved me the impossible decision.  Dark impenetrable thunder clouds.  The kind that turn the water into an impenetrable mirror and render fly fishing for carp virtually impossible.

I had to dodge or sit out the occasional thunder-storm but over the next couple of hours I put the standamaran through it's paces on increasingly bigger bodies of water.  

The first time I stood up on it I was a bit shaky.  The first though that came to mind was: "Am I really going to be able to fly fish standing up on this thing, or did I just waste a whole lot of time and money?"  It didn't take long though, and within the first 20 minutes I was worrying more about scanning the shallows for carp while paddling in the standing position than maintaining balance.  Within another half hour I was practicing my cast and was easily as accurate as normal.

I can only handle "practicing" for so long though.  Eventually I need real, so after a while I moved on to a small bay where I knew I had a decent chance of finding a few carp on the kind of medium depth flats I had in mind when I started this project.

As I entered the bay I switched to my push-pole.  So much to learn!!!  It turns out that rotating my little boat with a push pole is HARD.  Ridiculously hard.  It is really easy to go straight slower.  It is really really easy to go straight faster.  You want to change course? Hah!!!  Good luck.  So this was the first lesson of the day.  I am either going to need some new skills or add a skeg or rudder to use to pin the back end so that I can rotate around that while poling.

It took a while, but eventually I did manage to get myself lined up and slowly drifting into the bay at the desired depth (about waste deep) and orientation (looking shallow).  Shortly there-after I learned my second critical lesson - speed!  It felt like I was creeping into the bay but I was actually cruising along at a pretty good clip.  Much much faster than if I were wading.  

When a tailing carp suddenly appeared nearly directly in my path it was shocking how fast I was moving and as a result I blew the first presentation.  I blew it BAD.  I can't complain about the second and third presentation though, sometimes you do everything right and you just don't get the eat.   Which brings us to the third lesson - which is that  I am going to be able to get much much closer to tailing carp than I was expecting.  I made the third presentation at 12 feet and was within 8 feet before the carp finally noticed me and bolted for the depths.

Which brings us to the next lesson, and that is that this thing is going to work and it is going to work well.  The very next carp I saw was one I would have never seen on foot in the poor lighting.  It was in about 8" of water over a light sand flat at about 35 to 40 feet.  This fish was cruising slowly and erratically like a shark over a reef and was in total seek and destroy mode.  If I made the presentation I WAS going to get an eat.  Period.  Well, I nailed it.  Put push-pole in armpit.  Strip out 40 feet of line.  Cast to 37 feet, drag to 35 feet and drop it in front of the carp's trajectory.  One tiny twitch for good measure and then kill the fly completely dead.  Easy money,  and because of my elevated station I got to see the carp surge forward and eat the fly in such excruciatingly fine detail that I have barely slept since.  The sequence is burned into my soul.  

I think I learned allot about my new toy in the next couple of minutes.  I am sure I did, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what because everything turned to chaos at that point.  Between getting dragged 50 feet, stowing the push-pole, getting out the net, fighting and landing the fish all while not falling in i don't remember much.  What a GAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CARPTORIOUS: Knee Deep in IT

Long time readers of the blog may know that I catch allot of my carp on 3X tippet. That is just what I like and that is just what I use about 90% of the time. Well, not today. Not today.  Today I was in IT and 3x was not an option.  Heck, 0X was not an option.

Today I decided to fish the flood plains of one of our local reservoirs.  The first issue was that spawn was in full force.  That doesn't help but I can work with it - and I actually managed to hook (not catch!!) 9 carp. Quite respectable.  

The bigger issue was that I was fishing in a beaver infested flooded forest. LOTS of lumber.  My shins are bruised and bloody just  from wading through it.

You hook a carp in that and you are pretty much out of luck.  Immediately.  One carp wrapped me around the tree in the middle of the picture above three times.  In about 1 second!

After the first carp destroyed me I knew had to resort to desperate measures.  I cut my leader back to 3' (Guessing 35lb test?), torqued down my reel, pinched the line to my grip and resolved that from there on out I was either winning or losing - immediately.  Every time I hooked a carp I put on the maximum pressure as fast and as hard I could.  To hell with my rod, it was me versus the forest versus the carp.  Mono E Pesco.   

It didn't always work.  Actually it wasn't working out that well at all and by the time I was 0 for 4 I almost gave up.  I am glad I didn't because the one I finally landed will go down as one of my most memorable carp ever.  The take was awesome, the fish was big, the fish was hot and I gave it 0.0" of line. Zero. Nada. Nilch. I can't believe my fly-rod survived to tell the tale. Going lock-down toe-to-toe on a hot 15lb carp is a shockingly violent experience.  

I have caught allot of carp on the fly in my time.  Many hundreds.  After you have caught enough carp you don't scream and shout and make an ass out of yourself every-time you catch one.  Most of the time you move on to the next one with a pleasant feeling and that is about it.  On this carp I bent my head back and howled to the carp spirits.  

Its ON!

April can be boom or bust when chasing carp on flies on the front range.  The wild fluctuations in temperature, pressure and water clarity make it very very confusing.  The carp are here today gone tommorow.  Additionally, I rarely catch many big ones in April.  The big girls don't show up shallow on most of the stillwater's that I fish until late April early May. 

Get it right, however, and you can put up some pretty good numbers of feisty and fun juvies.  The end of this latest four day warming trend was perfectly aligned with my day off and I practically caught nearly as many carp as I did all winter in less than 24 hours.

After a long hard winter of duking it out for a couple of carp an outing it is a blast to just catch a bunch of carp with relative ease! 

Winter Carp On The Fly Fix Video 2

Whether or not it is still Winter in Denver when all of our stillwaters are iced-out is negotiable - BUT there was snow on the ground this morning so I think it still qualifies.  Snow in the morning, carp on the fly in the afternoon!!!!!

CARPTORIOUS: Kicking it Still-water style

I caught a carp today.  Two of them actually.  Both small and no big deal really, and hardly worthy of a blog post but these carp were interesting to me for several reasons.

First of all, I need an excuse to post about something NOT fly swap related.  Any old excuse will do and since it has been over a month since I have had the time and gumption to give carpin a go this is a pretty good excuse.

Secondly, I have now caught a carp every month for 24 straight months.  Thank god for small victories.  I am one miserable January of 2012 from it being 36 months but who is counting.  I am counting.  Stupid January.

Thirdly, these count as the first two still-water carp of the new year for me and that might be the earliest still-water catch for me yet.  I measure Winter a little differently than the traditional method.  I figure it this way: If I cannot catch carp in still-water it is Winter.  If I can catch carp in stillwater it is not-Winter.  I really really hate Winter.  I really really really like not-Winter.  As far as I am concerned Winter is officially OVER.  That is a bold and foolhardy statement in Colorado and will probably result in several blizzards in the next three weeks but to heck with it.

And finally, I caught both carp on the headstand leech I have been working on which has been tweaked just a little bit from where it was in this post.  As a matter of fact every carp I have caught in the past three months has been on various subtle tweaks and prototypes of this fly.  As such, I think it has finally formally earned it's name which will be "Chubby Chaser Leech"!

McTage's Chubby Chaser Leech Carp Fly

McTage's Chubby Chaser Leech Carp Fly

McTage's Chubby Chaser Leech Carp Fly

Video: Suspended Dap

Hard rabid tailing carp can be infuriating. Often they can be surprisingly hard to catch since the carp can't find your fly in their own dustcloud and you can't figure out when they take the fly amid all the choas. If you can get close enough to dap the fly one presentation to try is suspending the fly just a couple of inches off the bottom at the edge of the dust cloud.

 

First Go-Pro Video

My lovely Wife got me a Go-Pro for Christmas.  I still have allot to learn on getting great footage but here is a taste.

These were two of the carp I caught on the Headstand Leech Proto-fly over the Christmas / New Years break.  One on an underhand flip cast drag and drop and the other on a over-hand cast drag and drop.

Headstand Leech Proto Carp Fly Using Cohen's Carp Dub

Leeches are an important food element for many species of fish, including carp.  I have several friends that catch a good majority of their carp every year on leech flies.

Up to now I have always gone with a black Zimmerman's Backstabber when I wanted a leech.

The Backstabber is a superb fly and super easy to tie, but I much prefer to catch fish on flies I have designed myself.  As a result, I have been trying to come up with a leech of my own for over a year now.  I have tied up at least 15 different ideas, and I hated them all the second they came off the vice.  Unoriginal.  Ugly.  Too hard to tie.  Doesn't behave right in the water. You name it, I have screwed it.  What I needed was inspiration and that inspiration recently arrived when Pat Cohen from rusuperfly.com sent me a bunch of his new Carp Dub from Hareline.

Pat is one of my favorite on-line tiers because everything he ties has a high level of aesthetic artistry that is just beyond me.  Don't get me wrong, I think my flies are pretty spiffy and they catch the snot out of carp, but there is just no way they are as artistic as Pat's for the simple reason I am not as artistic as Pat.  So, when he sent me all that dubbing in the obvious hope that I would make something cool and carpy with it, I was a little overwhelmed and intimidated.  On demand  is NOT how the creative process works for me.  It works in it's own good time, and for no apparent reason.  If at all.  I also felt a little pressure to make something worthy of Pat freaking Cohen.  As a result I avoided my tying desk and the pile of carp dub on it for several days.

Finally yesterday I was walking by my desk when I happened to notice the "Northern Lights Black" looking at me funny.  You know, kinda out of the corner of it's eye and I just had to stop and actually take a closer look.  Pull a pinch out of the bag and feel it.  Put it under a light and check out the color variation.  "Micro-flash".  "Niiiiiiiice".  "squigglies".  "Ummmm Hmmm".  "Coarse but not TOO coarse.  "Ohhhhhh yeah".  Not really ideal for dubbing a tight body, but good for a buggy dub and PERFECT for a dubbing loop!  Twenty minutes later this was sitting there on the table in front of me.  Like magic.  A leech I don't hate.  A leech I like quite a bit.  And I feel it.

So this was version 1.0 of a Headstand articulated leach with a Cohen's Carp Dub dubbing-loop-body trimmed for a lateral - almost spoon-like profile.  Very sexy, but like I said above, pretty is not really my forte. What the fly does in the water is my thing and even as I was loving this fly I knew deep down that it would not do a head-stand as intended.  I used the shank from a size 12 dry-fly hook and there is just not enough natural buoyancy in this dubbing to lift that.

Fortunately my subconscious was on the job as I slept.  When I awoke this morning I knew exactly what I needed to do and hopped in the car for a quick run to the fly shop to get some tube tying stuff.  You know.  Stuff.  Whatever the heck stuff you need to tie tube flies.  After some consultation with David (one of my favorite shop guys because he is a born-again carper) and a quick buoyancy test in Anglers All's goldfish tank I bought this stuff:

Forty minutes later version 2.0 was off the vice and in the sink.  It now had a tail built on a 3/8" long piece of small tube fly tubing attached to the hook with big fly thread.  A quick dunk in the sink confirmed that version 1.0  (top fly below) flopped right over on it's side while version 2.0 (bottom fly below) did a decent (although not perfect) headstand.

Now I had a problem though.  I was REALLY feeling this fly.  Feeling it enough that I was going to be agitated until I got the chance to try it out.  Fortunately today was a really nice day and by 2:00 I had a little time to run to the river for some quick on-the-water winter testing.

I had some good shots in the next two hours and learned some things.

First of all I am on the right track.  I had at least 6 carp turn on the fly.  For winter carpin it was a very very positive response.

Second of all I think the fly might need to be a smidge smaller for winter carpin on the South Platte.  In other seasons and on other bodies of water I think it would be fine, but four of those carp lost interest in the fly after their initial positive reaction. In my experience, on the DSP that typically means that the fly is too big, being fished with too much movement or is too flashy.  In this case I am going for just an eensy weensy bit too big.

And finally I learned that although I THINK I am on the right track, I KNOW that the fly will actually already work as-is because two of the 6 carp were more than happy to eat the dang thing! The first was a little guy but I don't care.  The only feeling better than a winter carp is getting the stink off of a new pattern!

The second was a whole different story.  Big.  Real big.  As a matter of fact if the second fish was just half a pound heavier I could have closed out 2013 the same way I closed out 2012.  With a super-rare-for-me twenty!

Not a bad start for the Headstand Leech.  Not a bad start at all, but as you may know a fly doesn't earn a quirky name, recipe and place on the favorite flies page around here until it proves itself worthy. Two carp does not worthy prove!

The Magic Number Twenty

The number twenty holds a certain reverence in the fly fishing world.  A 19" trout is nice but a 20" trout is BIG.  A 19" Bass is pretty sweet but a 20" bass is a beast.  A 19" carp is puny while a 20" carp is ... still puny.

Around here that is why we talk pounds.  If you measure your carp in pounds, suddenly 20 is magic again.  I hook a 20lb carp and I know it.  Instantly.  About three shakes of a monkey's butt later the whole world knows it.

"Twenty - Twenty - Tweeeeentyyyyyyy!!!!!!!"

Truth is I don't catch all that many 20lb carp, but my first carp of 2013 was a DSP personal best 22lb.  That was a good sign and I had my best year so far for twenties.  Here they are, in no particular order and with a 30 thrown in for good measure: