When your luck is in......

A great paragraph from Graham on another thread.

....Don't knock good luck, make the most of it while you can because as sure as eggs are eggs it will run out sooner or later and you'll have a run of bad luck when nothing seems to go right.

That's when you're really tested.

Supoib!

I dont keep a really accurate log, but I know there are times when I really can't go wrong, 2 different PBs in a week, catch my target species every session, blah blah blah. Then other times it seems like I don't know a fish from a chip.

Is it luck?

"Is it luck?"

I think it was Lee Trevino who was goaded by the crowd (when he chipped-in twice in 3 holes against Tony Jacklin at Wentworth) when they jeered him saying that he was a "lucky bar-steward" to which his reply was:

"You know what? The more I practice the Luckier I get"

I think the same is very true with certain styles of fishing - the more I practice with a stick float the luckier I get too!

There's a lot in what you say Peter, but there are times when we know we must have killed a robin or missed saying good morning to a magpie. Experience and plenty of practice in the past will see us through with the odd fish or two, but we still hope and pray the bad run will soon come to an end.

Whilst agreeing with what Peter has just posted, I know exactly where Graham is coming from.

There are times when it seems you can walk on water - a great string of match results or big fish in a row. You've obviously got the skill but Lady Luck is positively beaming.

And then... It all goes T*Ts Up. Your skill remains as good as ever but the worst draws in history stick to your paw - your confidence starts to nose dive (you reading this, Matt Brown? - we'll fix up some big fish fishing later this year).

Inexplicably after a period of six months (or whatever), assuming you've haven't packed it all in, and plenty do, your luck returns, or I should say, you get the normal run of the draws, or big fish, maybe nothing spectacular but enough to rebuild your confidence. Yet through this rough patch you could scarcely catch a fish that mattered.

So all the practice in the world won't save you from such a run. Any match angler that's done it for a few decades will have had a BAD run at some time - Kevin Ashurst once went 3 months without weighing at all!. Mine was in 1981. The previous season I was winter League champion. Early part of 1981 all OK, winning matches and framing then the 1981 Thames Championship where someone drowned on a flooded river. I had ounces that day but that was good compared to what followed. First WL a week later. Roach 1st cast, pike took roach second cast - no more bites, followed by blank after blank in matches. Even when I did get 2 grayling in a match I weighed in 1 oz. Yet pleasure fishing I did OK, nothing fantastic but I kept practising. Then in Feb I framed with a pound, next match 3rd, and from then on the jinx had gone after 6 months of hell.

And these temporary jinxes affect all sorts of sportmen and women.

I think we need a perm of skill, confidence and luck.

We can practice the first to get the second.....but we all have times without the third!

I had my worst year barbel fishing last year with only one double to show for it. Admittedly I fished a lot of new water, but there were times when I thought I'd lost it, whatever 'it' is.

I consoled myself with the certain knowledge that this year is a different year than last and it could all turn round to the good side just as easily as last year flipped to the dark side.

One thing is always an absolute certainty: without negatives there would be no positives. So let's be thankful for them and just ride them out.

Last winter I fished the river alot, a lack of skill, confidence and luck left me about 10 blank sessons.
This winters been great, admitidly I've been after a different species and on different venues. Although I relise I'll have a dip again at some point.
And like Graham said without negetives there wouldn't be positives, so after a bad spell when you do catch it seems great.

I thought I was the only one that wont look at magpies...................just in case

I used to have a pet maggie!

"or missed saying good morning to a magpie"

I knew it had to be something so thank you for that Graham. I shall mend my ways in future so watch out you lot at Clattercore this year!

No wonder of late that I felt I had the curse of Cane on me.

I thought you had to salute a single magpie ?
two or more is ok ,its the one for sorrow two for joy bit

I would definitely agree with both Mark and Graham inasmuch as we all go through those periods when we cannot seem to 'buy' a bite, let alone a double figure Barbel, a one and a half pound roach or a 2 pound Perch.

But, is it that 'Lady Luck' that has deserted us or are we simply victims of what Mark described in his latest Match fishing article?

I have had periods when I've gone to venues that I know like the back of my own hand, fished it the way I have for years, if not decades, and gone home and recorded a blank in my fishing diary.

Now, was this that luck had deserted me or had I simply fallen into the old trap of not really observing the conditions, not 'feeling' the whims of the fish or simply using the wrong bait, or method on a given day?

I will readily concede (from bitter experience) that you can draw a succession of 'toilet' pegs in matches, but eventually the law of averages comes into play and you will draw a decent peg, fish it correctly for the day and the conditions, and end up framing or winning the section at least.

Notwithstaanding the above, I whole heartedly agree with Graham that without the negatives then there would be no positives, but then that is why its called 'fishing' and not 'catching' innit?

Jeff said:
"No wonder of late that I felt I had the curse of Cane on me."

Now Jeff, would that be the Biblical or the Split variety?

;-)

The Biblical one, sad to say. (I even forget if it's spelt Cain or Kane or ....? I'm not Able to comment.)


The one good thing about bad luck is that just like good luck, it ends.

Good luck, bad luck, isn't that uncertainty the very thing that attracts a person to angling in the first place? Although quite possible, it isn't often you see the fish you catch before you net it, that is the mystery of fishing, it is also probably the reason why a lot of otherwise sensible people can't see the point in angling.

To some, the very fact that they have caught a fish at all means they have had good luck to others its bad luck because it wasn't the big one they were hoping for.