“When nothing goes right...”
They happen to us all... just enjoy the ride
ON ONE of my recent guide days I got myself into a right old tangle while attempting to show my angler in tow an underarm cast.
Straight away the chap said: “It’s nice to see even the pros getting it wrong,” at which I laughed out loud. I told him that ‘professional’ I might be, in that I earn my living from angling, but everyone in my line of work gets into a tangle at some time.
As I was at pains to explain, there are days when just nothing goes right for me. I’ve fished with a mate out of a boat when we were both trotting baits down the current – using exactly the same gear, floats set at the same depth and with identical baits – and yet my mate had a bite a chuck while I couldn’t buy a nibble.
Yes, sometimes the roles are reversed, but days when you have two left feet and your head’s on backwards are a fact of everyone’s angling life.
I bet you think you’re the only angler who forgets things. Not a bit of it! Three seasons ago I travelled an hour to a pike venue and when I arrived I found I’d left my deadbaits at home in the freezer. To make matters worse, I copped for a speeding ticket on the way back to retrieve them.
Mind you, I did have a 26lb pike first cast, so everything came right in the end, I suppose.
Then there was that roach catch I made earlier this season, 19 fish over 2lb, which included one over 3lb and nine the right side of 2lb 8oz. Great day or what? Yet for the first hour of that session I fished like a novice, breaking a rod on one of my first casts.
Luckily I’d brought some spares and, in the end, I had a couple of days that I will remember for the rest of my life.
I told the customer who’d witnessed me making a pig’s ear of an underarm cast that I can usually judge whether we should be using multiple rods or just the one, but there was one morning fishing the high bank on peg 60 of the Kidderminster water of the Severn when I got it badly wrong. After baiting up the night before, the barbel were queuing up to be caught, but I was greedy and opted for two rods. At dawn I cast them both in and within seconds the lefthand rod bent double to a big barbel. The sensible way to land it would have been to engage the freespool function on the rod still in the rest and then slide down the bank and land the fish from the water’s edge. Slight problem – I didn’t do that.
While playing the fish which, as it happens, was a 13lb Middle Severn personal best, I heard a strange noise. That was my other rod pulling out of the rest, and looking up I caught a glimpse of it shooting like a javelin over my head and into the water.
With the 13-pounder in a retaining sling I cast out with the rod I’d just played the fish on and second cast I caught the flying rod. Unbelievably, the fish was still on – a 6lb barbel.
Before you ask, yes, I did buy a lottery ticket that evening and no, I didn’t win!
So, those were just a few instances in the 60 years I’ve been fishing that prove I am only human – unlike some of us in the angling world who try to kid everyone otherwise!