Carp anglers are an odd breed. They’ll happily spend an entire weekend sitting beside a lake, obsessing over hooklink lengths and the angle of their shrink tube like they’re conducting a complex NASA experiment, and stressing over what other anglers are doing around them. All in the name of ‘relaxing’.
They pride themselves on being logical, tactical and methodical in their quest to out-fox their wily quarry. Yet somehow, carp fishing is full of things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. These are just five that leave us scratching our heads…
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The price of ‘essential’ gear
Carpers can quite easily convince themselves that a bivvy costing more than a family holiday is a sensible investment. £800 for a glorified tent? No problem. £120 for a padded mat to lay their catch on? Bargain!
They’re the only people who will be outraged that a packet of Space Raiders no longer costs 10p, then casually spend the GDP of a small nation on a new spod reel because it has a marginally better retrieve rate than their current one.
And let’s not even get started on bait boats. No longer is it acceptable to just catapult boilies in.
The modern carper now needs a remote-controlled craft the size of a fairground dodgem, equipped with sonar, GPS and Wi-Fi, costing more than the car they drove to the lake in.
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The weather logic
It’s ‘too cold’ to mow the lawn, ‘too wet’ to wash the car, and ‘too windy’ to walk the dog. But apparently these are the perfect conditions for sitting outside for 48 hours, surrounded by mud and goose droppings with only an oversized brolly for shelter and a small gas stove to cook your rations on.
Carpers call it dedication. Non-anglers would call it insanity. Both definitions are technically correct.
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The bait obsession
Carp anglers talk about bait the way chefs talk about Michelin stars. “Yeah, mate, I’m using a double 15mm fishmeal boilie with a pineapple topper soaked in liquid liver and krill extract.”
To have a shred of kudos on the bank, it’s imperative to sound like you’re inventing nuclear fusion in a bucket.
And what self-respecting carp would graze on a spod mix which doesn’t consist of a least six different items and two liquids?
Of course, the bloke in the next swim who caught several carp on a tin of sweetcorn that had been rolling around in his car boot for six months clearly ‘just got lucky’.
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The ‘one last cast’ syndrome
It’s 6am. You’ve blanked for two days. You’re cold, hungry, and smell like the inside of a bait bucket. You’ve got to be at work in three hours. And yet, as you slowly start to pack up, a solitary bleep from the bite alarm (probably caused by the wind) convinces you to stay for just ‘one last cast’.
Fast-forward 12 hours… you’re still blanking, you’re unsure whether your boss bought your claim of being too ill to work and if you still have a job, and your only bite has come from a mosquito which somehow managed to infiltrate your bivvy’s mozzi mesh. But hey, that’s carping!
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The ‘stealth’ approach
Blending in and not letting your quarry know you’re there, is crucial in carping. Which is why most anglers will be clad in enough camo to make the military jealous. The ultra-dedicated will even carefully wrap their tea bag Tupperware box in camo tape in case an ultra-observant carp should spy it from 100 yards away and spook.
So far so good. Said angler will then proceed to cast all over their swim with a lead, as they feel for that all-important ‘donk’, before bombarding the surface with a Spomb and making sure that every carp in the lake knows that they’re there.
But not to worry, as the carefully selected fluorocarbon hooklink is virtually invisible underwater and that bright pink pop-up attached to it, wafting an inch or so above the lakebed, should look perfectly natural to any passing carp.
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