Vojta Novotný - TB Baits

People pursue hobbies for various reasons - they dont know what to do with money, they need to find a way how to spend their free time, their friend does it too or they are looking for a new meaning in life. That was exactly my case. The career of the top athlete faded in an instant, after an examination in the MRI tunnel, and I decided to carp fishing - simply put.

Today I know that carp fishing has saved my life. At the age of eighteen, I had to involuntarily end my athletic career, and I decided to spend my free time with girls and other pleasures. Until then, I didn't have time for women due to two-phase training. I only fished occasionally with float, but since I was little, I didn't think about trophy carp at all at that time.

Returns from alcohol parties were getting harder and blacker thoughts getting more frequent. It was a very difficult period. But once did I see a photo of a huge carp in the arms of Tomáš Blažek on the Internet. I had no idea what kind of person he was, but the carp literally captivated me.

By eighteen, I wanted nothing more than two carp rods and a deck chair. In my opinion, it was the necessary equipment for me to go on my first trip to the trophy carp. I started visiting a small public pond not far from home, where I exchanged a swimming rod and earthworm for boilies and successfully caught carp about 70 centimeters, which were fish from the realm of dreams - for the locals. I aimed higher.

On the sea bank

With a friend of mine who was a year younger, but knew a little more about carp fishing than I did, we planned a week-long trip to the largest public water we found in the area. We only searched according to the map and it never occurred to us to go there to see it - it was about thirty kilometers from home. I remember my grandmother dropping us off on the bank of sadn pit keeping repeating: “It's like the sea. And how deep it will be… “

She was scared, but I'm not at all surprised, because the sight of her teenage grandchildren sailing on a red canoe into the unknown must have been at least torturous. We paddled like crazy and start fishing in one nice place. I slept under such a sheet, I didn't know how big fish were swimming here, and the 100 hectares of water seemed endless to me. I could only make a simple rig, I didn't know terms like shock line, lead line and other conveniences that make it easier to hunt in heavily overgrown waters. But I fell in love with carp fishing and I guess someone upstairs sensed it…

The next morning I have my first slow carp run. My friend already had a few fish on his rod, but all hopes ended in countless ties. That's why I'm not waiting for anything and I'm sitting in the boat. I was eighteen and I will remember such a fight to the end of my life. Miraculously, the carp did not run into any marathon at the bottom of the sandpit, but it drove me smoothly through the water. It took perhaps half an hour for the huge body of the scale to rise to the surface. I sat down in the boat and a wave of adrenaline swept over me, like when I won athletics or worked hard. It was an unbelievable feeling. Satisfaction made, a huge wave of happiness and a reward for overcoming it all.

Then, when I let the fish back into the water, I wanted to cry.

I visited this sand pit for the next few years, despite the lack of time and money, countless times, but without success. I did not achieve a single carp run and I did not undertake any expedition there for two years. While studying at university, I decided to write a graduate thesis on trophy carp fishing. As a student of journalism, I gathered more courage and that year at the exhibition For fishing Tomáš Blažek and other Czech carp idols addressed. I requested an interview for my graduate thesis and they agreed. Some of them provided me with valuable information right at the show, but I go to see Tomáš to Kolín in the spring of that year to do an interview.

It was a fairly friendly talk, at the end of which I left with valuable information and a few packs of GLM Squid Strawberry and Black Pearl boilies. On the very first day of fishing, the brake of the reel spun into unbelievable turns, the carp took tens of meters and I knew it was the right fish. At the end of the fight, I led another scale carp to the landing net and felt the indescribable feeling again. Again, I knew that carp fishing was fulfilling me, and that even this could be a reward for two years when I didn't even catch a net.

My work on trophy carp fishing went through an examination board and I successfully completed my studies a few years ago. Carp fishing saved my life, showed me direction, new joy and provided vital adrenaline. I enjoy every moment spent by the water and "my" sand pit will forever be in my heart. I now look at a lot of things after a health problem as pettiness. That's why I enjoy my time by the water to the maximum, and even though the fish aren't taking it, I don't know much nicer views than the awakening water and the nature awaking to life. I wish magical moments by the water to all real carp anglers who do not have time to gossip, do not solve nonsense and have found such a meaning in life as carp fishing!