You have to laugh

The thread about fishing with centre pins made me remember a day when my fishing was wrecked before it started....

Another time was during the early days of a well known Oxford roach water, yes, that one lol....anyway i arrived one storm lashed Friday afternoon, this was pre "straw" days, those who fish there will know what that means!

I managed to get the gear all set up eventually, rods set on the delks, bivvy up, etc etc, tirednes overcame me and the storm was getting diabolical so i decided to get in the bivvy and and get some kip so that the next two days and nghts i had to fish were done to the best of my ability.

I awoke to a nice overcast day, wind just right and i felt good about fishing..........i righted everything the storm had thrown about and leant both rods against the bivvy ready to bait them up.

I had purchased a a lot of very expensive maggots from the best source in the midlands, loveingly degreased and slightly flavoured em so i was really confident.

At least i was untill i realised i could count the maggots that remained..........yes i hadn't secured the top and they had walked! disapeared! gone!

I didn't laugh then but i do now!

Come on...........tell us when you screwed up! /forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

I must have been about 10 years old? My old man was ledgering with a pin and there was me enviously looking at his gleaming reel longing for a go on it. My chance came, the old man nipped off for a slashso I grabbed his rod for a flick to the far bank.

Big mistake! I did an overhead cast with his 1oz arsely bomb on!

Everything was fine, I can remember waiting for the lead to hit the water, which it did, but the reel kept going! And I waited and waited and waited, but the reeldidn't stop!

Oh my god! I looked down, what had I done to me Dads reel? The birds nest was massive! I can remember chucking the rod to the floor with the reel still spinning.

I got a quicksmack round the earwhen he returned from his call of nature, but that was it.

.

And then there was the time with the maggots on my honeymoon at Bournemouth............................/forum/smilies/embarassed_smiley.gif

I can rember chatting to our dad when we fishing and hered F*****g great splash, he must have seen some thing good cos Steve was in the river splashing about, think we went home after that.

/forum/smilies/confused_smiley.gif

Last January springs to mind, it was cold, wet and a bit blustery and I had decided to have a chuck at a local stillwater.

I was still confident I could catch but I knew it would be tough. I set up my gear, box bait bait tray, pole etc and I started to set up a waggler rod for a chuck to an island opposite. It just started to rain so I set my brolly up fixed it to my box (didnt put the pole into the ground because I didnt want to spook the fish).

I was conscious of the wind so I sat on the box to balance the load and proceeded to set up the waggler rod but my reel was in my bag. I reached out to my bag grabbed my reel and just as a turned to sit on my box properly a gust of wind caught my brolly and my whole gear tipped up and landed in the lake (bear in mind it was around 3 foot an inch from the bank dropping off to around 6 feet 2metres out)

I just managed to stop my platform from aqua planing across the lake with my brolly now on side but in doing so my bait and all other bits and pieces tipped up into the water and to cap it all off my beloved shimano reel few about 10 feet in the air and fell into the water with a plop.

The water was about minus 5, I had to get in and find the missing bits of gear, about 30mins later I had got most of it back, dried off and continued fishing- proper hardcore.

I wasnt a happy bunny but its a bit funny to think how stubborn I was, most people would have packed up their gear and gone home to site in from of the fire. I was determined not to have my day ruined, even though it already was.