How I ended up swimming today

[MichaelAngelo]

This is not ice fishing related .

The past day or so I've been out on the rivers in search of suckers. In my hand - my brand new ultralight combo spooled with 4lb line.

Today I found myself plopping my worm and splitshot around from the vantage point of a small bridge. I hadn't gotten any bites.

After about an hour or so at this spot, I began to notice movement under the surface. Behold, a pod of carp had moved in.

Sounded like a good idea....

Was NOT a good idea.

I had a carp hooked within minutes of spotting the pod move in. The fish was the boss of me and ran under the bridge into who-knows-what of a few log jams immediately downstream.

I backed off on the drag in hopes of keeping the line in one piece as I gingerly coaxed the fish back through the jams. It wasn't happening. 20 minutes later I had managed to gain a small crowd of bystanders and not an inch of line.

It dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to accomplish much with my rod pointing straight down, pinned to the side of the bridge. I would have to get under the bridge somehow and find the fish. And so I went, half of me submerged to crawl under the bridge. Down the river I went, for about 20 feet. I cleared the line off of a log and the fish appeared from beneath it.

Another tussle ensued in the open water. The fish then decided to swim back into the logs, despite my best efforts to put pressure in the opposite direction that I wanted him to go.

And the line gave up.

There is my story of the day. I couldn't have wished for more excitement, but it would have been nice to get a picture of the fish that got me swimming.