9 replies to this topic

[WG666666]

My two youngest sons (Willy age 14 and Ben age 10) and I participated in the FFF in our area (Southeastern Pa). Prior to New Years Day, I had been scoping and chumming several areas that we have had success in the past. Most were completely frozen over......I therefore took it upon myself to de-ice some areas during the week prior to the FFF and of course leave some sweetcorn whne I was done. We began the FFF on the late side, not reaching our first spot til around 10 AM or so. The weather really cooperated with near 50 degree temps and some morning sun! This spot had produced some nice koi and mirrors last year. This spot I will call "the duck pond". There is a culvert at the duck pond that empties "warm water" after it travels underground for some long distance. I assisted the warm water by breaking up the ice, and by the time it was New Years day, there was a 20' hole around the discharge pipe. My corn had disappeared during the previous chummings, but no fish showed while we gave it an hour.

We then moved to the second spot, "the business park pond". This pond has some nice koi and mirrors, with a large population of smaller mirror carp. The picture shows that the fountain managed to keep some open water even during the cold snaps, but an hour of fishing where I had chummed all week produced no hits..The boys were getting a little bored and frustrated as two previously "go-to" spots were no producing....we decided to move to a small creek that has some "limestone spring" influence and therefore had remained ice-free.

When we arrived at the small creek, I noticed that my chum had dissaperaed overnight and there were some small carp feeding. This creek is only about 10-15 feet wide at its wides, with many areas that are less then 5-6 feet across...truley a small venue. The fish are in gin clear water and hooking them requires a quiet approach and 4 pd flourocarbon line.....our baits were single kernels of sweetcorn on size 16 hooks..... Willy almost immediately hooked a decent mirror at over 9 pounds. Ben then hooked and landed a ghost carp, while Willy then hooked a pretty small mirror just over 2 pounds. Ben and Willy each landed another mirror and while netting the last mirror, I noticed a koi feeding. This particular koi I had hooked in the summer, but it broke me off on a submerged log. Since that time, it never appeared to feed on my chum again, and would purposely move upstream whenever sweetcorn enetered the water!

It appeared to hev lost its fear, and was now feeding! Willy hooked it, and after a pretty long fight, landed the little koi. We then decided to try for a VERY small carp that showed up, as it was well under a pound. We gave it about an hour, but the small carp would not take, while other carp freely fed around it.....we decided to go back to the "duck pond" and try for the last hour of light. This time the duck pond produced several large goldfish, but no koi or carp showed up.

I feel like we should have stayed at the small stream as we left fish to find other fish......oh well lesson learned for next year.......as always we enjoy fishing in the FFF!

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[MOON]

really cute pictures, keep it up guys....one of the best FFF

[redpeachpackbait]

wtg. nice looking mirror!!!!!!!!!!

[Brooklyncarper]

Excellant! Beautiful koi. The boys earned those carp

[Jerome]

Now I know why we struggle to have a good number of juniors to participate to the FFF... It's just too hard to compete against the Gordon boys!!

Ok, just kidding. Still, year after year, the Gordon boys (and dad) work very hard, and deliver one great story after another. And this year, given that so many of us miserably blanked, we really needed such a great story. And we got it! Thank you, thank you.

[classiccat]

Now that's dedication! The de-icing takes the cake! Top-notch stuff guys!

[hairwig]

Excellent. Thanks for posting this

Edited by hairwig, 04 January 2011 - 07:37 PM.

[FiSherwood]

Fantastic post!
I don't know what I like more; the carp or the kids!

Well done on both!

[chakram]

Outstanding.

[accordbw]

Great pictures! The smiles say a thousand words and it looked like everyone had a good time.