Meriden girl caught a 34½-pound carp in Mirror Lake
Meriden girl caught a 34½-pound carp in Mirror Lake
Sydney Leach, top, helps her twin sister, Emmy, demonstrate the size of the carp Emmy caught in Mirror Lake. The 34½-pound fish was about 40 inches long.
Meriden girl caught a 34½-pound carp in Mirror Lake By Adam Wittenberg, Record-Journal staff Record-Journal | 0 comments
MERIDEN - When 11-year-old Emerson "Emmy" Leach fished a 34½-pound common carp out of Hubbard Park's Mirror Lake three weeks ago, her reaction belied her age and innocence.
"When I got it out of the water, I was actually like ‘that's kind of cool,' " she said last week.
The fish could easily be one of the biggest - perhaps the biggest - pulled from the lake, and it was hooked by one of its smallest anglers. But Leach and her twin sister, Sydney, are anything but amateurs when it comes to fishing.
They are serious about the sport, which they learned from their grandfather, Milt "Skip" Sauer.
From April through November, the twins are there at least once a week with Sauer, and sometimes with other family members, fishing for trout, sunfish and carp.
"It's probably three to four years I've been fishing over there, and I started with them," said Sauer, who used to live in Norwalk but moved to Meriden in 2000 to be closer to family after having a health problem.
He owned a boat and used to fish in Long Island Sound for years but "never got anything that big" when compared to Emmy's catch.
"I could not believe a fish that big came out of that pond," Sauer said, adding, "She did it all by herself. She kept the pole tight, never dropped the tip. It took her probably 15 minutes to get it in.
"Sydney was going to net it until she saw the size of it. She said, ‘you do it, Pop-Pop.'"
Sauer and the girls have caught three 29-pound carp in Mirror Lake over the last two years, but this one "just blew the others away. I thought it was a tuna," he said. It measured about 40 inches - longer than the 36-inch tape - and had a girth of 25 inches.
"I betcha I was more excited than Emmy was when I saw that fish," Sauer continued. "She came over and gave me a high five. Sydney was all excited taking the picture."
The fish, which was released back into the pond, has a way to go before it can challenge the state record. Nigel Griffin, of Milford, caught a 41½-pound carp - as well as a 40߄¼-pound one within minutes on the same bait - in the Haddam area of the Connecticut River in May, said William Gerrish, senior fisheries biologist in the inland fisheries division of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
"That's good for our waters," Gerrish said of Emmy's catch, noting that carp weighing more than 88 pounds have been caught in Europe, where the sport is more popular.
It is gaining adherents here. The state's record has been broken several times in the last three years, Gerrish said, and "individuals are adamant that they see 50-pounders in the Connecticut River all the time."
Carp grow slowly and live long - a koi (carp relative) in Asia reportedly lived 215 years, Gerrish said - and increase in size depending on conditions and the availability and quality of food.
At Mirror Lake, "people throw loaves of bread in there for the ducks," said Tom Gaj, the city's parks superintendent. Gaj said he's worked in town for 30 years but "never saw a fish that big in there."
When the city drained it eight years ago to perform maintenance, local outdoorsman Mike Roberts thought that was the end of the fish, but carp, catfish and some eels survived. Today, largemouth bass, sunfish, yellow perch and bullheads are there, along with trout that are stocked for events such as the Meriden Rod and Gun Club's annual children's fishing derby, scheduled for today.
The event used to be held at Baldwin's Pond but that became too weedy and had less access than Hubbard Park, said Ray Guest, the club's financial secretary.
"I just don't think it's fished that much," he said of Mirror Lake. "To see more kids up there would be nice."
The city has long restricted Mirror Lake fishing to children under 16, but began in 2000 to allow adults to fish if they were accompanied by a child. At the urging of Roberts, whose "Woods 'n' Water" column appears Sundays in the Record-Journal, the city this year lifted a restriction so people 65 and older can fish the pond alone.
That has led to an increase in seniors fishing, Gaj said, with several coming each day, but Roberts said the number of children is a far cry from his days growing up in the 1940s and early 1950s when "you would have to get reservations to go fishing at Mirror Lake.
"Kids don't have time for fishing" today, he said, because of sports and other activities. "If you're on a Little League team and you don't show up for practice you don't play."
The Leach twins play for the Meriden Soccer Club about 10 months of the year, but they eagerly fish with Sauer whenever time allows.
"Sydney will call me up, ‘hey Pop-Pop, when are we going next?' " he said. The park is near the Harbor Brook Condominiums where he lives, and parking and water access are easy.
"Here, there's nothing in the way," Sauer said. "You set up a chair, bring the kids with you - it's a ball."
And conditions at the lake are ideal for carp. The shallow pond - about five to six feet deep in most places - has plenty of silt on the bottom, which the carp disrupt, indicating their presence.
While professionals and some amateurs will "chum" an area - scatter food such as corn or bread on the water in advance to attract the fish - Sauer hasn't found this necessary.
He did hit upon a special bait with the help of his son Kevin, who also fishes, which may have contributed to the recent large catch.
Instead of just using balled-up pieces of white bread on fish hooks, Kevin's friend had suggested adding peanut butter to the bait.
"You take a regular piece of bread, ball it up so it's golf ball-sized, slather the outside with peanut butter and bingo: big fish," Skip Sauer said. "We've been fishing three or four times since then and caught the biggest fish."
Emmy's line was a 10 pound test, so Skip's taught the girls to reel the fish in slowly so as not to snap the line. Carp are known to be quite sensitive, so anglers typically leave the bail open, allowing the line to extend once a fish grabs it.
"You can't horse 'em in," Skip says. "If you go real quick you'll snap the line. If you leave it loose you can play the fish more."
It's the challenge of reeling in carp that has help make them the "World's Greatest Sport Fish," according to the Carp Anglers Group. Hartford hosted the Catch-And-Release Professional (CARP) Tournament of Champions in 2008 and 2009, Gerrish said, attracting anglers from across the globe.
Many brought high-tech equipment, such as sensors that would email or ring a cellphone when a line got a bite, in case the angler was away from the scene.
"Carp are very intelligent fish," said Gerrish, a lifelong angler who has taken up the sport. "They have the ability to learn" to avoid certain types of bait once they've been snared by it.
Carp fishers have their own favorite baits and recipes for "boilies," mush mixes that are placed over fish hooks to conceal them.
While equipment can be both elaborate and expensive, such as special lawn chairs and tents for serious anglers, starting up can be as simple as acquiring a pole and some bread.
Sauer said a starter pole kit costs about $35. His granddaughters use six-foot poles from Ugly Stik, although he bought them better reels as their skills improved.
Fishing equipment tops the twins' birthday and Christmas lists, said their mother, Jennifer Leach, and Skip now enjoys doing the holiday shopping, which wasn't the case when his own daughter was young.
Jennifer grew up fishing with her dad, but that ended when she was in middle school.
He put her in a cabin on his boat during the six-mile trek across Long Island Sound and "accidentally locked me in," she said. "He had a fish on the line so he wasn't going to come and get me and I got sick. I was done. I never woke up at the crack of dawn to go fishing again."
That's why Skip said he was quite surprised when his daughter allowed him to take the twins fishing the first time. It has since grown into a beloved family bond.
"I love seeing them this close to my dad," Jennifer said.
"I just like that he takes us fishing every time that he's off from work and we get to spend time with him more often that way," Sydney said. "My friends think it's really amazing. We show our teachers (pictures) too" at Thomas Edison Middle School, where the girls are in seventh grade. "It's really fun."
Jennifer said her girls were "little tomboys, the opposite of me," but that she wouldn't change them.
When asked her reaction to her sister's catch, Sydney said it was "pretty amazing.
"I was jealous of her a little bit," she said, before adding that she would "pretty much" try to top her catch.
Despite the big haul, Skip keeps it light, marveling that the girls are often just as excited catching small sunfish as they are big carp.
While he knows their affection for fishing may change as they progress into their teen years, he's going to "enjoy every second until that happens, and hopefully when they get older they can teach their kids how to fish."
awittenberg@record-journal.com
Meriden girl caught a 34½-pound carp in Mirror Lake
Sydney Leach, top, helps her twin sister, Emmy, demonstrate the size of the carp Emmy caught in Mirror Lake. The 34½-pound fish was about 40 inches long.
Meriden girl caught a 34½-pound carp in Mirror Lake By Adam Wittenberg, Record-Journal staff Record-Journal | 0 comments
MERIDEN - When 11-year-old Emerson "Emmy" Leach fished a 34½-pound common carp out of Hubbard Park's Mirror Lake three weeks ago, her reaction belied her age and innocence.
"When I got it out of the water, I was actually like ‘that's kind of cool,' " she said last week.
The fish could easily be one of the biggest - perhaps the biggest - pulled from the lake, and it was hooked by one of its smallest anglers. But Leach and her twin sister, Sydney, are anything but amateurs when it comes to fishing.
They are serious about the sport, which they learned from their grandfather, Milt "Skip" Sauer.
From April through November, the twins are there at least once a week with Sauer, and sometimes with other family members, fishing for trout, sunfish and carp.
"It's probably three to four years I've been fishing over there, and I started with them," said Sauer, who used to live in Norwalk but moved to Meriden in 2000 to be closer to family after having a health problem.
He owned a boat and used to fish in Long Island Sound for years but "never got anything that big" when compared to Emmy's catch.
"I could not believe a fish that big came out of that pond," Sauer said, adding, "She did it all by herself. She kept the pole tight, never dropped the tip. It took her probably 15 minutes to get it in.
"Sydney was going to net it until she saw the size of it. She said, ‘you do it, Pop-Pop.'"
Sauer and the girls have caught three 29-pound carp in Mirror Lake over the last two years, but this one "just blew the others away. I thought it was a tuna," he said. It measured about 40 inches - longer than the 36-inch tape - and had a girth of 25 inches.
"I betcha I was more excited than Emmy was when I saw that fish," Sauer continued. "She came over and gave me a high five. Sydney was all excited taking the picture."
The fish, which was released back into the pond, has a way to go before it can challenge the state record. Nigel Griffin, of Milford, caught a 41½-pound carp - as well as a 40߄¼-pound one within minutes on the same bait - in the Haddam area of the Connecticut River in May, said William Gerrish, senior fisheries biologist in the inland fisheries division of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
"That's good for our waters," Gerrish said of Emmy's catch, noting that carp weighing more than 88 pounds have been caught in Europe, where the sport is more popular.
It is gaining adherents here. The state's record has been broken several times in the last three years, Gerrish said, and "individuals are adamant that they see 50-pounders in the Connecticut River all the time."
Carp grow slowly and live long - a koi (carp relative) in Asia reportedly lived 215 years, Gerrish said - and increase in size depending on conditions and the availability and quality of food.
At Mirror Lake, "people throw loaves of bread in there for the ducks," said Tom Gaj, the city's parks superintendent. Gaj said he's worked in town for 30 years but "never saw a fish that big in there."
When the city drained it eight years ago to perform maintenance, local outdoorsman Mike Roberts thought that was the end of the fish, but carp, catfish and some eels survived. Today, largemouth bass, sunfish, yellow perch and bullheads are there, along with trout that are stocked for events such as the Meriden Rod and Gun Club's annual children's fishing derby, scheduled for today.
The event used to be held at Baldwin's Pond but that became too weedy and had less access than Hubbard Park, said Ray Guest, the club's financial secretary.
"I just don't think it's fished that much," he said of Mirror Lake. "To see more kids up there would be nice."
The city has long restricted Mirror Lake fishing to children under 16, but began in 2000 to allow adults to fish if they were accompanied by a child. At the urging of Roberts, whose "Woods 'n' Water" column appears Sundays in the Record-Journal, the city this year lifted a restriction so people 65 and older can fish the pond alone.
That has led to an increase in seniors fishing, Gaj said, with several coming each day, but Roberts said the number of children is a far cry from his days growing up in the 1940s and early 1950s when "you would have to get reservations to go fishing at Mirror Lake.
"Kids don't have time for fishing" today, he said, because of sports and other activities. "If you're on a Little League team and you don't show up for practice you don't play."
The Leach twins play for the Meriden Soccer Club about 10 months of the year, but they eagerly fish with Sauer whenever time allows.
"Sydney will call me up, ‘hey Pop-Pop, when are we going next?' " he said. The park is near the Harbor Brook Condominiums where he lives, and parking and water access are easy.
"Here, there's nothing in the way," Sauer said. "You set up a chair, bring the kids with you - it's a ball."
And conditions at the lake are ideal for carp. The shallow pond - about five to six feet deep in most places - has plenty of silt on the bottom, which the carp disrupt, indicating their presence.
While professionals and some amateurs will "chum" an area - scatter food such as corn or bread on the water in advance to attract the fish - Sauer hasn't found this necessary.
He did hit upon a special bait with the help of his son Kevin, who also fishes, which may have contributed to the recent large catch.
Instead of just using balled-up pieces of white bread on fish hooks, Kevin's friend had suggested adding peanut butter to the bait.
"You take a regular piece of bread, ball it up so it's golf ball-sized, slather the outside with peanut butter and bingo: big fish," Skip Sauer said. "We've been fishing three or four times since then and caught the biggest fish."
Emmy's line was a 10 pound test, so Skip's taught the girls to reel the fish in slowly so as not to snap the line. Carp are known to be quite sensitive, so anglers typically leave the bail open, allowing the line to extend once a fish grabs it.
"You can't horse 'em in," Skip says. "If you go real quick you'll snap the line. If you leave it loose you can play the fish more."
It's the challenge of reeling in carp that has help make them the "World's Greatest Sport Fish," according to the Carp Anglers Group. Hartford hosted the Catch-And-Release Professional (CARP) Tournament of Champions in 2008 and 2009, Gerrish said, attracting anglers from across the globe.
Many brought high-tech equipment, such as sensors that would email or ring a cellphone when a line got a bite, in case the angler was away from the scene.
"Carp are very intelligent fish," said Gerrish, a lifelong angler who has taken up the sport. "They have the ability to learn" to avoid certain types of bait once they've been snared by it.
Carp fishers have their own favorite baits and recipes for "boilies," mush mixes that are placed over fish hooks to conceal them.
While equipment can be both elaborate and expensive, such as special lawn chairs and tents for serious anglers, starting up can be as simple as acquiring a pole and some bread.
Sauer said a starter pole kit costs about $35. His granddaughters use six-foot poles from Ugly Stik, although he bought them better reels as their skills improved.
Fishing equipment tops the twins' birthday and Christmas lists, said their mother, Jennifer Leach, and Skip now enjoys doing the holiday shopping, which wasn't the case when his own daughter was young.
Jennifer grew up fishing with her dad, but that ended when she was in middle school.
He put her in a cabin on his boat during the six-mile trek across Long Island Sound and "accidentally locked me in," she said. "He had a fish on the line so he wasn't going to come and get me and I got sick. I was done. I never woke up at the crack of dawn to go fishing again."
That's why Skip said he was quite surprised when his daughter allowed him to take the twins fishing the first time. It has since grown into a beloved family bond.
"I love seeing them this close to my dad," Jennifer said.
"I just like that he takes us fishing every time that he's off from work and we get to spend time with him more often that way," Sydney said. "My friends think it's really amazing. We show our teachers (pictures) too" at Thomas Edison Middle School, where the girls are in seventh grade. "It's really fun."
Jennifer said her girls were "little tomboys, the opposite of me," but that she wouldn't change them.
When asked her reaction to her sister's catch, Sydney said it was "pretty amazing.
"I was jealous of her a little bit," she said, before adding that she would "pretty much" try to top her catch.
Despite the big haul, Skip keeps it light, marveling that the girls are often just as excited catching small sunfish as they are big carp.
While he knows their affection for fishing may change as they progress into their teen years, he's going to "enjoy every second until that happens, and hopefully when they get older they can teach their kids how to fish."
awittenberg@record-journal.com
