Are you experienced?

[barbelboi]

I go by the theory that if you know what you're doing you're not learning anything.............

 

[Paul Boote]

"Experienced" but still always learning in some fields; utterly clueless in others.

Cue T.S. Eliot's lines in his great poem "Little Gidding", first read as a fifteen-year-old English A-level student, taken on board and never forgotten, especially when I start to think that I know and understand more than just a little.


We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree

 

[dead peg]

Similar story here .When I first took up fishing I assumed older anglers were better just through experience but Ive seen some anglers who have fished for decades who handle fish badly and are inconsiderate/ignorant to other anglers ... but when they started fishing of these old boys never had the opportunities with technology or tackle to learn and better themselves like we've got now

I think a minority of anglers have a natural ability/knack and take to it quickly without putting too much thought into it ..
I try to learn on and off the bank .Tips on the venue/methods your fishing etc
Knowledge is power .. but local knowledge is key

 

[mick b]

Experience.....well if you fish the same swim, using the same techniques and tackle and do it for say, ten years how do you measure that your experienced, or not?

Consistently good catches?
Fully understand what you and the fish are doing, all the time?

If the answers to the above are Yes, then I suppose you can be considered experienced, but surely you are experienced only on that one swim


For me, I 'think' I know what I am doing some of the time but some days, but on some swims I am completely at a loss on how to get a single bite let alone a fish from it mg:

I totally agree with Keith though, I would rather be a lucky angler than anything else.

And yes somedays I am lucky....indeed Im very lucky sometimes
But experienced.....no!

.mg:

 

[Tee-Cee]

Well, I'm definitely experienced ! Experienced in catching fish on some days and experienced in catching zilch on others.....even the following day, in the same swim and with the same gear - and I'm getting to be very good at it !
At the moment I'm working on gaining enough experience to know why that happens and have been for donkey's years, but every answer I come up with is thrown back in my face, and with some force...

Oh yes, I'm good because some inexperienced anglers I know tell me so, but then they assume I catch loads of fish every time I go out.... and do you know what, they really don't believe me when I say I had a blank session just the day before !!

I suppose I would say, if I'm being honest, that I have the Green 'L' Plate sign firmly stuck to my back rather than the red one, so I must've learnt something over the past 64 years of fishing, but I do wonder on some days............................


....and yes, I'm happy to take on board just a little luck because I work damn hard to earn it!!

 

[Ray Daywalker Clarke]

Well i have seen so called experienced, good anglers, specialist or what ever else you want to call them, Blank time and time again.

I have seen Newbies out catch them.

It's all what happens on the day, knowledge comes to the fore, over time.

There is a saying, your only as good as your last job, I apply that to fishing, you catch somedays, you don't others.

You will get everything bang on, or so you think, and Blank, it happens to the best and the worst.

We are all the same, Pleasure Anglers, if we weren't we wouldn't go.