Send us a pic when you land it! And good for you for taking on all these comments. I should say there is, as always, a bigger picture behind your ongoing battle with the as yet uncontrollable carp. Most of us commenting on here grew up in a pre-commercial world . A world, mostly, of small fish. We caught roach, perch, dace, gudgeon, bleak, ruffe, skimmer bream. Maybe, on better waters, proper bream. Maybe the odd tench. Chub, possibly, if your local river had them. Really keen anglers had holidays in Hampshire or Dorset where barbel lived. We hardly saw a carp. Beginners worked their way up, handling their gear and catching small fish, gradually meeting things that pulled back a bit. We spent years gradually learning how to play these comparatively rare bigger fish.
Someone getting into fishing these days might well pay their £6 ticket for a commercial, and while they are still working out how to do fishing, find that anything from a 2 oz roach through a 5lb tench to an 18lb carp might well be the next thing to pick up their bait. It's part of the rather unreal world of commercials now that a newbie or relatively so, can be hooking the kind of fish that until recently were only encountered by committed and seasoned veterans of the sport. It's not surprising if this poses some "how the hell do I get these things out?" problems. I fished for 30 years, catching millions of fish, before being attached to the kind of double-figure fish that is snapping your line. When I was young, there were brilliant anglers older than me with the highest skills, who never caught 15lb of mixed fish in a day. Bigger catches weren't available .The carp that snapped your line might well have weighed that on its own. So stick with it. We're all waiting.
