Carp, Little Shabakunk, Trout, Bass, and Looking Ahead

My son wants to catch a carp. We try Monday in the Lamington River with Eagle Claw mulberry carp bait. Hope this works.

I've been reading Discovering and Exploring New Jersey's Fishing Streams and the Delaware River by a number of NJ and PA writers. Right now I'm very psyched to try the Delaware for walleyes this coming winter. I've caught both walleyes and smallmouths in the Delaware in December years ago. But why I haven't really tried in recent years I'm not sure and it gets to me right now. My son and I have tried twice in the past seven years, but both times weren't very sincere efforts. I remember on the outing seven years ago I was much more interested in teaching my son to build and tend a fire.

Right now I'm looking forward so steadfastly I don't think I care to throw myself in reverse and write on the Little Shabakunk as I had claimed I would. Perhaps I will sometime, and it may be boring, may be interesting, can't quite tell yet. But what is a telling point is that our carp venture Monday morning resonates with the fishing I did as a young boy. I caught only one carp in "the creek," Little Shabakunk. But suckers were abundant in the spring, bullheads in summer. The kinds of fish that kids value almost as much as bass and trout, or rather, they do value these fish, and trout and bass are like grail pursuits, were for me, since my first bass didn't come until I was 11 and had fished for three years. An eleven inch bass was like a bar of gold, made me ecstatic.

My son's been catching trout and bass from the age of three--but has never hooked a carp. I'm not sure what the dynamic is here... I'll pay close attention Monday.