Last night I foolishly ventured out to the homeless swim. It was freezing cold, 15 mph wind in my face, about 80% of the river was frozen. Even with water temps at a chilly 39 (Phone?) I couldn't resist after watching Jerome's video and seeing the success my fellow mass guys had this weekend.
For bait, I made up a batch of SPS special pack and added a few special add-ons myself! For hook baits I was using scopex pescaviva that I hyped up with superior VBN on one rod and an Egg an milk boilie on the other.
I started landing fish pretty fast and had 11 fish in about 2.5 hours with all but 2 on pescaviva. The thing is the two I caught on boilies went 14lbs and 16lbs, my biggest of the night. The bucket was running on empty so I made my last method ball and dropped it in the hot spot and started to pack up.
The newly baited rod took off and the fight with #12 was on. As I got it close to the shore I thought I was seeing things! There were no scales (or atl east I thought)!! On top of that it was a ghostie! The net was already packed so in the water I went to retrieve the fish. It was awesome! Just beautiful. A near leather ghostie! I flagged down a jogger (perfect timing), as I handed him the camera it died. I tried to revive it but no luck. I frantically started calling people as I needed a picture of this fish!
Then Jerome answered the phone. "I am on my way" he said after I explained my situation. He arrived about 15 minutes later, I was frozen and was walking the waters edge with the carp in the net. We took a bunch of photos and back to the river she went. I said it many times last night but THANK YOU JEROME! And post them pics!!
(Jerome speaking)
Didn't take me long to decide to go there when receiving a call stating "I caught a leather"... I'm lucky I didn't get a speeding ticket...
Anyway, here is a first pic of this amazing fish. Not a single scale on its body, except a couple on the tail. It might not strictly be a leather, cf. the row of (tiny) scales under the dorsal fin, but this was as close to a leather as it could be. And this is indeed a ghostie, with clear discoloration of the dorsal fin roots and the head. In any case, I have NEVER seen a fish like that in North America...
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Here the fish on the net (and improvised carp sack!).
The happy (and totally freezing) angler with his unique catch... I was badly freezing just out of taking those few pics without gloves.
Imagine Dom, holding the precious (wet!) fish, and after having kneeled in 39F water to land the fish half an hour ago... He was close to be blue...
And in my opinion the best pics of all, the release. I could see Domm hesitating, this must have been hard to let go such a fish... Well done, buddy!
Cold is not the word, I was frozen!!! Air temp with the windchill were 16. After I got wet it was all over. It would have been hypothermia central had it not been for Jerome giving me a lift home. No matter what, IT WAS WORTH IT!!! And I would do it again!
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