23rd July - Sodertalje Canal - Is there Carp in this area ?????

After an intense few very hot days with a Swedish record temperature of 36 degrees the Saturday became dull , cloudy , cooler , damp . moist with quite a cool breeze so it was wear your fleece time .

Mick and i sat in previous pegs that we had the first great catches from a couple of weeks back , we expected good fishing this time due to the  change of weather , did we ?

Well ! ........what a start for me after throwing in three small balls laced with dead maggots and some corn i had a fish on first placement of my 5gr Sensas Jan Francois rig 0.16/0.12 EXNER 04 series size 14 ........about 1.75k Bream on the corn .........wow , that was unexpected as normally the Bream come in later however it was noticeable that as we set up there was Bream rolling in front of us . In fact when i first set the box in the water there was a huge splash/swirl only about 5-6m our directly in front of me ? Was it a Pike however they normally attack aggressively and there was no fish topping so slightly weird to know what caused it ?

Then for the next hour i had one further fish a skimmer that came off and Mick had several Perch . About after 2 hours i had a bite and struck but the line was solid so thought i was stuck but then to my amazement it started to move to me left and i shouted to Mick ' Its a fish and i have no control' ! For sure it was Big and heavy and my JRange 6-8 elastic started to stretch to optimum capability and the lump went out towards middle of canal where i held it and for the next 5 minutes i just held on to it however briefly i did get it to the top where i glimpsed it was very long and golden colour so i thought it was not Tench as it did not fight like one . It was just a really heavy lump . Possibly at about 7-10 minutes later i started to guide it in and started to push my pole back behind me on a Top 7 and i knew the elastic was 'bottomed out ' almost . I started to adjust the position of the landing net in readiness , then it came almost to the surface and it was huge and long and looked like a CARP !! (It was very light golden coloured and at about 30-60 cm below the surface could see that the line direction was to its mouth so there was no foul-hook situation but in that few seconds of viewing it , it suddenly turned and threw the hook !!!!!!!!!!!

What a fish!!!! .......  i sat there shocked and shaking actually as have i witnessed the first Carp in the Sodertalje canal ? In fact i remember when i first arrived in Sweden in 99/2000 a Swede had told me that he thought there was Carp but next to ASTRA ZENICA on the other side (there may have been some warm water influence next to the vast array of production buildings , i speculate ?)

What else could it have been ? Bream ? ......no as it would have come in quicker and this was no dustbin lid but a long golden fish of at least 75cm long ?

Could it have been an old Ide however again i speculate that would be landed after an initial fight but this was not a fight more guiding a lump that was mostly controlling me !

I thought initially Tench , Ide , Big Bream or even a Burbot but none of these show the same fighting characteristics as the fish i had on . 

So i can only assume it was Carp due to its colour of light and Golden , longish fish that looked the shape of a Grass Carp , Big Head , scaling like a Common Carp all that i recognised in the two very brief viewings of this fish in the duration of being towed by this .........thing !?!?!

Also i think that if Carp it would be darker because of the deep water in the canal however the water is clear ........ i wish i had landed it , massive regret , what the bloody hell was it !?!?!?

Mick in his favourite peg that supplied him with some very good bream two weeks prior .

Astra Zenica opposite 

To the right of my peg 

My gear in place ready for my ..........unusual meeting with a fish that i cannot clearly identify! 
 

The rest of the session was awful as i had no further fish or bites ! , Yet , Bream continued to roll on the surface in front of me and Mick . We thought due to the extreme warmth in the water that they maybe up in the 4 metres depth of water we were fishing but we tried with no success . Eventually Mick snared a Bream and a good Roach with a splattering of Perch ..........but a poor day was experienced which must have been down to this hot weather we had a few days previous .........the water was literally a warm bath and Mick was dangling his feet of the box in it .