Twenty Five Pounds of Trivers Treasure

I seem to be slowly progressing through my ACL campaign... one good fish at a time. Of course, my efforts have not been helped by the weather; another very cold fishing Sunday made me wish that I could have been out chasing Carp on Saturday instead.

However, here I was at a new town and carp-hunting area, Two Rivers. Or, as the local residents call it, Trivers! I was here to meet two new carpfishing buddies, Wayne Boon and Tommy Riley, from California and Chicago respectively. They enjoy fishing Trivers every spring, and this was my first visit, the aim was to meet up and catch some good fish. However, the guys were still on their way up from Tommy's house, as they'd been fishing the ACS NE Regional Tournament the previous week.

I arrived at Trivers at about 12 Noon, only to discover that the guys wouldn't be arriving until 4ish at the earliest; so the obvious thing to do was to find some fish. With a cold breeze blowing in however, location was going to be a problem. I drove around the town, stopping at a number of possible places; with a couple of needs on my mind. If I was a Carp just in from Lake Michigan I'd be wanting somewhere as warm as possible, so I looked for an area with some shallows (to warm fast in whatever sunshine came along), but with a relatively deep channel or area for the fish to hole up in. Lastly I wanted somewhere sheltered from the worst of the cold wind. I eventually found somewhere warm and sheltered on the West Twin River, with a deep channel and a large shallow area just beyond it.... perfect!

I caught a couple of cats & bullheads early; enough action to give me a feeling that the carp would feed, and to force me to leave the worms alone! An older guy was out trying his new rod, and he hooked a fat Smallie, so it seemed that my warm spot was appreciated by most of the local fishy species! After he had left, I had 4 small Carp in 4 casts, on a chick pea/corn cocktail, down in the deeper channel. I'd also seen a few fish roll nearby, and one good fish rolled right over my right-hand rig, which I'd positioned about 25 feet out from the bank, on a gentle slope about 7 feet deep, leading to the deeper water.

After about 3 hours fishing, the right-hand rod indicated a powerful drop-back bite, and my resulting strike hooked a very angry fish that made a couple of short but powerful runs out into the middle of the river. I tightened up on the fish as much as I could (worried about snags and navigation buoys & anchor chains), which brought the Carp to the surface about 50 yds out, where it lashed the surface with its tail... a good fish! After a couple more powerful runs, the battle became a tug of war down the edge, with my recovering line after every lunge of the fish. Finally it rolled on the top and I could see it was lightly lip-hooked, easing up on the fish I kept it turning for another minute and it was ready to net.

Great fight, and a short but chunky fish was in the net; I was happy! After a quick weighing it checked out at 25 pounds exactly; my best fish of the year so far. Thanks to a little thought about weather and conditions, and a lot of wandering around looking for the "right place for the day", I managed to catch a good fish under bad conditions.