The Carp Anglers Group's First Fishing Folly (FFF) 2014

The 2014 FFF

The Carp Anglers Group's First Fishing Folly (FFF) competition is a nation-wide carp fishing event. Basically the idea is to see who can be one of the first people to catch a fish during the new year. There are other categories as well, such as the largest and smallest carp. It is on the honor system - you submit pics of the fish you caught and report how much they weighed. This might seem like a bad idea but it seems to work as many other anglers will be looking at the pics and deciding if the fish add up.

For some reason I had never fished in the FFF, but this year I made an effort and got out there. I decided to fish Sooner Lake as it has a warm water discharge and hence does not freeze up. Before you say that is not in the spirit of the event I will say that I was fishing miles away from the actual discharge and the water was cold! I had thought about trying Boomer Lake, but it was a good thing I did not - by New Years it was frozen.

Even thought the FFF starts at 12:00am, it was cold out and I did not feel like fishing by myself in sub freezing temperatures in the middle of the night, so I got on the bank around 6am.

The first bait cast of the new year. A popup tipped with  fake corn with a small PVA bag of boilies. 

Sunrise, Jan 1, 2014

 As it turned out even 6:30 was unnecessary. Dawn came around and no takes. I began to get worried that I had wasted 3 days of baiting. As I was sinking down into the dark pit of blanking, a most welcome sound greeted my ears - one of my alarms was finally making some noise! I won't say it was screaming run - it wasn't - but it was enough to let me know I had a take.

8:24am. The first fish of the new year, 7lbs 10oz, caught on a 10mm snowman blow back with a size 8 Ashima Long Shank.

After a short fight I landed a small healthy looking carp of 7lbs 10oz. This made me feel much better as I now was not blanking and I felt more confident that there was fish feeding in the area. A few minutes later, I missed another run, this time on a single piece of fake sweet corn. The rig was the fault, so I changed it out and recast.

Waiting....

Things died off again and nothing happened for the next few hours. This prompted some rig changing and recasting in a bid to get a take. I moved the rods to the left closer to the channel as I thought the fish might have moved that direction as the light levels were increasing.

CC Moore Bloodworm wafter topped with half a fake 10mm boilie on a "counter balance"  blow back rig tipped off with bloodworm pellets in a small PVA mesh bag.

A more detailed view of my rig (note this is a different bait)

I also tried a PVA bag of crushed boilies with a cut down hook bait.

After making the bait changes the situations did not improve. I still was having no action, and it was looking like I might have to settle for just the one fish... It was getting close to 11am and it was time to start packing up. I had just gotten everything except the rods stowed, when I heard one of my baitrunners making noise. It turned out to be a better fish, and since I had packed the net I must have look quite funny trying to fight the fish and sort out the net. Things were going good when the fish became tangled in another line and the other line got snagged, leaving the fish stuck about 20 feet off the bank. Well I was not going to loose this fish so I waded out. That water was cold. However, I got the fish and it turned out to be 13lbs 4oz. I had taken it on the bloodworm rig. This rig I had cast way over my baited area into the channel at about 100yds or so. A very welcome fish to end the day.

As an added bonus I even placed in some of the categories and got a medal for being one of the first people in the USA to catch a carp in 2014! Over all it was a great time and I am looking forward to doing it again next year.