We went Carping because the meteorologists were anticipating a horrendous storm.  The majority of our usual spots were forecast to be rained out and blown out.  If we would brave the weather we’d do it close enough to home that it wouldn’t be too much of a run back with our tails between our legs.

First look was promising, Carp riding really shallow in the flooded grass on the river banks.  Len the Carp whisperer quickly hooked up, then the heavens opened.  We endured it until the wind came up, and started the walk back to the cars.

Then Leonard spotted something, stacks of catfish on the surface.  A drain (or sewer) had been opened , and the faeces filled water poured into the river.  Every single Sharptooth catfish within a sniff was here, the scene not unlike an Okavango catfish run.

We had discussed these tricky guys in the week leading up, and Leonard hadn’t managed to convince any of these lock jawed ones to eat.  Not today.

First cast in and Len was on, I quickly ran down the bank and slipped in, just downstream.  Sis.  I quickly forgot the smell and hooked up too.  Instant double!  This continued for an hour as we got our asses handed to us on 6 weights and 3x, but we did manage to land a few of the smaller ones and had a blast doing it.

Smelling like ass and soaking wet we decided to head into town for coffee.  On return we were happy to find that the carp were as hungry as the cats, and Len managed his best day on the river.  My favourite moment was watching him stalk what I was convinced wasn’t a fish in some flooded grass.  This pig of a fish then pulled him under the floating grass beds and into the fast flow of the river in full storm flow, while Len slowly won the tug of water I photographed the tailing fish putting on a show downstream and then returned to help him land it.

Its amazing how your forget about your surroundings when you’re having fun, and only yesterday did I realize how bad the storm was when I saw the pictures on the front page of the newspapers.