Took the gf's lad out carping at a local commercial today. Having never ever caught a carp myself (never actually tried until today, to be honest) I held out little hope of a successful day. Still, the guy in the shop gave me a few pointers on bait, location and tactics so off we went (all of which proved spot on).

The young lad loved it! He caught his first carp before me. A nice 4lb one. Then I caught a four and half pounder just to maintain my superiority :-)) and he followed this up with a four more, while I had to make do with the best of the day (6.5 lb). Okay nothing earth shattering here but they were certainly big compared to the roach and small perch that I've been weaning him on so far. Also gave me chance to show him how to play fish for the first time.

All in all a thoroughly good day. The lad's keener than ever and I get to add carp to the pike and zander as species that I've caught for the first time since my return to the sport last autumn.

Cheers,
Del

Good on ya Del

well done del+ co,you went with the intetion of capturing carp and you caught carp,makes you feel good setting out for a certain species,and hooking that intended species.

Nice one Del

In the last six years I have introduced three blokes to angling and started them all on small species then gradually added more venues and bigger species.
With youngsters I feel this is the best way of teaching angling as you can keep them happy for hours catching smaller species and pinging out maggots with a catapult!