Ever fell in or other catastrophe?

chub_on_the_block · Oct 4, 2011

I have only fell into the water once while fishing. It was on the Kennet trying to reach my keepnet at the end of a session and i succumbed to a vertical drop of about 6 feet into fast shallow water from a steep (near vertical) muddy bank. It was a comical experience. I landed arse-first and, as it was a warm day, just stood up and climbed out relatively none the worse. Somehow i was still clenching a small barbel (and i mean small - 6") which i had taken out of the net to take a photo of just before i fell back in towards the water. No idea how i held onto it, but i did.

It was more serious when a mate fell in (somehow) into a deep bit of the River Mole one winters day when there was snow on the ground. He went in one side of a road bridge and i dragged / helped him out from the other - thankfully... but still freezing his nuts off. As we were about 15 at the time it was scary stuff and had to pack up and race home having shared my dry clothes in the freezing conditions.

I also fished a Thames Championships match once where we heard after the event that one angler had fell in and drowned under the spate conditions.

Not wishing to dwell on the tragic, but how common is falling in?. Anyone got any confessions of daft ideas where they ended t*ts-up and wet all over?

mol · Oct 4, 2011

More than I care to remember

Jumping on a pontoon to prove it was safe for my mate to follow, unfortunately it wasn't and it flipped me in the lake as only one side was secured.

Pushed a boat out from a pontoon, realised I'd left an oar behind but was quite confident I could reach it. As I leant over the boat lowered, started to take in water and gently flipped me out, being the middle of winter I wasn't happy.

As a youngester I cast my favourite stillwater blue into a tall but thin tree. As it was my lucky float I climbed the tree to get it back, I'd got half way up and started to slip. I grapped on tighter but slid down the tree, I cut both my arms and both my legs.

Covering a big grassy that was going mental on the mat, I got a tail slap to the old family jewels, that really did hurt!

:wh

Philip · Oct 4, 2011

I have slipped many times and got wellingtons fulls of water and things like that but touch wood I have never (yet) done a sort of Laurel and Hardy head first type fall in.

Funniest “fall in” I ever saw was at a packed South East day ticket lake one sunday afternoon in about the 80s. A female angler was trying to cast a large sea fishing watch lead with a fly rod (no joke) and forgot to open the bale arm on the reel. She went for a full blooded cast and the result was the lead catapulting back round on the tight line and smacking her so hard in the back she knocked herself into the lake. It was unbelievable I am even laughing now thinking back to it.

kidfisher · Oct 4, 2011

one embarassing week.
sunday 1: chair breaks after leg falls down a hole
Tuesday: line snaps 3 times in one session so i change it
Sunday 2: now using a deck chair i set it up and leav it while going to chat to a mate downstream. hear a all might sploosh chair has gone in. using landing net fish it out somehow!
later same day: bankstick gets pulled in, lose 3 disgorgers (from behind ear) and lose a 2 set of my faveourite 10yearold plummets.

bad week or what
KF

904_cannon · Oct 4, 2011

Many many times, but a friend (good old Big F) never frails to tell anyone who will listen about the time I fell off my seat box whilst fishing on the Tweed

Fishing on the English bank at Horncliffe I foolishly bent over to pick up a spare spool I'd dropped, I bent over till I reached the point of no return and went head first down a steep bank into about 3ft of water, covering a deep mud flat. Apparently all that could be seen of me was my two boots waggling just above the water. Friends? tell me I looked just like a swamp monster dripping in black mud but with two white eye sockets where I'd wiped away the mud.

All Big F could do was roll about the bank in hysterical laughter.

Many years ago (c1964) I was on holiday with about 6 friends on the Broads. Tied up one night and all dressed up for a night on the local town (cant remember which now) and we are all trying to get on dry land. A voice is heard (from little Ted) saying its a lot easier to jump. The next sound we hear is a god almighty splash and scream; little Ted had jumped from the wrong side.

'Little Ted', is now Chairman of Wakefield Trinity (Wildcats) No wonder the once mighty Trinity are in such a $loody state!l

sam vimes · Oct 4, 2011

I managed to slide off the back of my seatbox recently, which was quite embarrassing.
Don't recall falling in but I'll have had a welly full a time ir two. I do recall going for a swim after a rod, much to the amusement of all around me. Can't recall what it was that distracted me at the time but it's not a mistake I'll ever make again.

stikflote · Oct 4, 2011

fishing on derwent a few years ago in a very dry summer i was setting my chair up with my back to water, when the bank gave way sending me down a five foot drop on my back into about four foot of water i was totally soaked head to foot, after taking all clothes and wringing em as dry as i could i went back to car injust my jeans ,wife said car was stinking for weeks,
i now always have a small change of clothing in car.
,

barbelboi · Oct 4, 2011

I've had the obligatory welly fillers from time to time on various rivers. Funniest I've seen must have been a complete 16m pole travelling across a lake, a minute later a swimmer in pursuit in his Y fronts. Even funnier was watching him trying to get the lot, complete with a carp of about 5lb, back on the bank.
Jerry

Tee-Cee · Oct 5, 2011

I've jumped in (to what I thought was shallow water) in an attempt to keep a fish out of lillies only to find the water past thigh depth and a soft bottom. To say it only adds to the problem would be a masterpiece of understatement!
The result: lost fish, having to be half dragged out of the water and the premature end to a nice mornings fishing not to mention driving home with sopping clothes and a wet car seat to boot!
Just great!!

What I NEVER do is stand with my back to the water-if your're going to overbalance it will be backwards-I speak from experience............

Waste deep in snow water (back in the late 50's) having gone by train to St Neots on the Ouse and the journey back.......................I could go on...

agamemnon · Oct 5, 2011

when i was a teenager i was fishing the canal and had a cheap deckchair for a seat, i leaned forwards to reach something on the bank and the legs collapsed inwards and i ended up going face first into the canal.
the funniest disaster though didnt happen to me but to a friend on tring reservoir about 20 years ago. mid feb with snow on the ground i was woken up around 4am by a strange noise. shortly after i saw my friend running around the bank dressed in his thermal underwear. he had left his stove on in his bivvy to keep warm and fell asleep and the gas had gone out, around 4am he woke up and decided to have a brew to warm up. as he sparked his lighter the bivvy exploded into flames and took his clothing and sleeping bag with it. he was lucky to escape with singed eyebrows but lost every thing in his bivvy.

flightliner · Oct 5, 2011

Only done it the once-- I was about eight years old and was fishing on the fossdyke canal that runs from the trent arm at Torksey up to Brayford pool in Lincoln.It was a hot day and I was catching a few small roach but my older brothr was struggling. My dad asked for us to change places which I did somrewhat reluctantly, but as I sat down on the steep bank I just found myself sliding into the water. My dad, having pulled me out and perhaps to cover my embarrassment proudly told me and all there that I was now a proper angler. Never gone in since-- cross fingers-- but have nearly done so several times over the years.

peter crabtree · Oct 5, 2011

funnily enough I had one today. I was fishing a match on the Thames at Windsor , my peg was a sandy beach and shallow water out beyond the pole line so I set up a 3AA peacock waggler . I waded out and put my seat box in the water . The first hour I was bagging up with dace and roach.
then along comes admiral flipping nob head in his big White gin palace at a pace I could see would be a problem for me, no amount of shouting and waving would slow him down , the tsunami type wake started rolling towards me. I threw my rod behind me and got hold of my keepnet which was staked in front of me. then the waves hit.
my bait boxes all washed off my side tray, all the drawers on my box were swamped , even my bag on the bank got wet . the air turned very blue.
I glanced down and my biggest dace was looking up in my net , I could see it was going to jump out , then it did...
I retrieved what bait I could save and picked up my rod, my whole waggler rig was in a huge tangle and the air turned blue again as I cut it off and started
all over again..

S-Kippy · Oct 5, 2011

For a long time I held the dubious distinction of having fallen in every river I'd ever fished. I've fished a lot more rivers now but I'm still only 2 or 3 short of a full set. My best ever was not far from where I think Simon was today......a full blooded headfirst into a bank high Thames in December. Funny now but at the time I was bloody lucky to wash up shipwrecked on a willow downstream or I might not have got out.

When I was a boy and went everywhere on a pushbike I once stuck a rod rest through my front wheel when going downhill at a fair old lick. The resultant acrobatics would have got me a medal in freestyle BMX and I compuonded an eventful trip home by then forgetting to turn left att the end of a very dark short cut and riding straight into the river. I still dont know how I managed to do that.

Fishingdownthewindy · Oct 5, 2011

Last season on the Wye, really muddy bank with a 10 foot drop, slid down it in one and managed to finish inches from the Wye pushing through at a rate of knots, later that day I returned a barbel and should have gone in when it started to struggle out of my hands, the ground was that slippy.

Fish care is all well and good but you got to think of number one, that barbel entered a few inches above the water and happily swam off I wouldn't have fared so well if it wasn’t for grabbing a willow.

flightliner · Oct 5, 2011

I was carp fishing a lake in lincolnshire some twenty years back. Bivvied up next to me was another angler --a well known figure in the carp world. Sometime in the early hours he had a screamer and in his sleep fogged mind only firing on two cylinders he scrambled out of his bag and somehow in his haste missed his rods and ran full pelt into the lake up to his neck in cold water.
He still blushes when he sees me even after all these years.--- TWONK!

Mart Smith · Oct 6, 2011

Ther only time for me was fishing the dorset stour. I'd checked the bottom of a steep bank and I looked fine - dried mud and grass. As I slid down the bank I realised that it was just a raft of dry grass and ended up waist deep. Toot a good 15 mins to get back up the tall bank.

xenon · Oct 6, 2011

not exactly falling in, but weird all the same. Spent a week hill walking in the highlands in february, last day of the trip, on the way down. So far, so good. Needed to cross this smallish burn and spent some time looking for shallows to ford it without success so decided to just jump in and walk across, thinking "whats the worst that can happen?-soaked up to the knee, but that's ok, we can live with that" Having decided on this I took a flyer into a slow moving pool about 2 and a half foot deep. Oh dear, the pool was in fact crusted with a 2 inch thick layer of ice which my feet broke through, but my shins scraped on the razor sharp ice so I'm standing upright in this pool watching two streams of blood flowing gently downstream. Ouch-that really hurt!

red creel · Oct 6, 2011

Only the once thank god it was my first visit to the Test of all places and i ended up looking like a right numpty!.About midday i hooked a powerful fish that led me all over the river before i could eventually get it into the margins.Looking down on the fish i was convinced it was a small salmon and was just congratulating myself when a voice behind me uttered those familiar words "any good mate".I was so shocked at hearing this being convinced there was not another angler within a quarter of a mile of me that i spun round to quickly lost my balance and in i went.Thankfully the water was not deep or the current to strong so sort of waded/floated a few yards downstream where matey was waiting to pull me out.To add insult to injury he was holding the rod with the fish still attached so offered the rod back to me saying its still on pal you land it.At the very second i put my hand around the reel stem the fish fell off!

mg:

Ray Roberts · Oct 6, 2011

Some years ago I was fishing the North Kent CIU Beach angling championships in the worst conditions imaginable, really it should have been called off.

Nevertheless, despite the appalling conditions I had a few and I hadn't seen anyone else catch, so I carried on right up to the final whistle and as the tide rose so did the waves.

As I was packing up I went to rinse out my bait tray, I tried to time the gaps in the waves, but as I went to the edge of the surf a huge wave broke over me and I was completely submerged, as the wave receded it scoured out the shingle under my feet and started to sweep me out to sea. If I wasn't a reasonably good swimmer then I would have been a goner.

I count myself very lucky that I am still here, but why is it that when you make a total prat of yourself that there is always an audience to entertain. I did have the last laugh though as I won the individual and the team prizes single handedly. Its what I came so close to losing that sticks in my mind though.

chub_on_the_block · Oct 6, 2011

Some great stories here i think.

Im sure theres more of the trapped in bivvy - screeching optonic - half-sleep wildly careering into the lake panic type events that modesty permits admitting to.

One ingenious plan me and a mate had involved getting out to a platform for some dawn tench fishing. The bit from bank to platform had rotted away, but a serviceable two-man platform was there, about 25 yards out beyond a clearing through the reeds. Easy - just wade to it. Problem - he had forgot his waders. Easy - i wade out to platform take off waders and throw to him on the bank. So we did this.. and it worked.

At the end of the day getting back off the platform to the bank was a trickier proposition. I could wade back oK, but to throw the chest waders accurately for him to catch on the platform could be tricky from that range. Ingeniously, i floated them out on a bit of polystyrene or something or other and launched them out .. except they stopped short in the reeds. I think thats how it happened. Anyway I still have the photo I took of him soaked to his waist and stripped to his underpants after after he got out..

Ever fell in or other catastrophe?

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