robtherake
Well-known member
Here's a bold statement: there is no living angler in this green and pleasant land more cack-handed than I.
There: I've said it, and it's probably the truth. Over the years, more mishaps - all self-generated and eminently avoidable - have come my way than any ten other anglers of my acquaintance. It has nothing to do with bad luck - just plain incompetence, pure and simple. I suspect it will ever be this way (cue Hamlet advert!)
I could fill a book of biblical proportions from cover to cover and still have enough left over to start a second volume.
So let's have a little example...
Roll back a couple of months and a new rod prompted a morning visit to my favourite lake. A method feeder cast to an island margin was being studiously ignored by the resident fish population, so it seemed safe (!) to set up an (almost) identical second outfit and cast to a gully in open water that's usually good for a fish or two.
There was still no action, so after a while, out went a couple of spods of particles and I wound in for a recast. At this point, a youngish gentleman - a local - dropped by for a chat. Now, I like this chap; he's a studious and successful catcher of the bigger carp and freely gives sound advice based on experience.
But I grow nervous under observation and make a bigger ass of myself than usual, so I popped the rod back on the rests rather than demonstrate a perfect miscast, dropping the feeder in the margin and remembering (holy of holies!) to flick the 'runner on, just in case.
Smug in the knowledge that I'd avoided a screw-up, we chewed the fat for a while, until the insistent tick of a baitrunner drag alerted me to the fact that a fish had slipped up.
I promptly picked up the WRONG ROD, alarmed at the curious lack of resistance, and watched, horrified, as the feeder swung round the OTHER ROD in a diminishing spiral, with each turn of line neatly intersecting each coil of the pigtail eye of the Sidewinder indicator mounted thereon.
By this time, the hooked fish had built up a head of steam and the"live" rod (the new one, egad!) with line now tethered to the blank by tightly wound coils of finest 10lb mono, took off like an arrow.
To my credit (and I didn't realise I still possessed such reflexes) I managed to reach out at full stretch and grab the very last inch of handle, thus narrowly averting disaster. It didn't occur until much later that both rods could have gone swimming - ye gods
Strange choking noises from behind indicated that this farce was having the usual effect, but, to his credit, my young friend grabbed the other rod, so there was at least a slim chance of sorting the mess out.
Pulling the outfit towards me and grabbing the line forrard of the tangle to make a little slack, it must have taken ten minutes to sort out the resultant bird's nest, with the fish interrupting proceedings at intervals by reminding me of it's presence in the usual manner.
After ridding the live rod of the tangle, it soon became obvious that the line on this rod was also now wrapped round the pigtail, so it was back to work, yada , yada, yada....
Eventually, and the fish was still on by the way, a very pretty, but bored mirror of maybe two pounds (it probably had time to smoke a fag and have a laugh with it's mates) came to net, but I still hadn't finished, that would be too easy, wouldn't it?
By this point, thoroughly humiliated and fed up, I fumbled the net, the frame bounced on the end of the platform, catapulting the carp back from whence it came, whereupon I had to play it in again!
As if that wasn't enough, to add insult to injury, a stray dog took advantage of the confusion and ate the best part of a kilo of Cell boilies while our backs were turned, taking off when noticed, licking it's lips and with a ner, ner, ner, ner, ner expression on it's mug - I swear it was laughing too, the b'stard!
To make my embarrassment complete, on the way back to the car, one of the nuts fastening the wheel on one side of the Korum chair wheel kit came adrift. That side dropped like a stone, destabilising the lot and dumping it all in front of a gang of nubile schoolgirls walking in the opposite direction.
Why do I bother, eh?
There: I've said it, and it's probably the truth. Over the years, more mishaps - all self-generated and eminently avoidable - have come my way than any ten other anglers of my acquaintance. It has nothing to do with bad luck - just plain incompetence, pure and simple. I suspect it will ever be this way (cue Hamlet advert!)
I could fill a book of biblical proportions from cover to cover and still have enough left over to start a second volume.
So let's have a little example...
Roll back a couple of months and a new rod prompted a morning visit to my favourite lake. A method feeder cast to an island margin was being studiously ignored by the resident fish population, so it seemed safe (!) to set up an (almost) identical second outfit and cast to a gully in open water that's usually good for a fish or two.
There was still no action, so after a while, out went a couple of spods of particles and I wound in for a recast. At this point, a youngish gentleman - a local - dropped by for a chat. Now, I like this chap; he's a studious and successful catcher of the bigger carp and freely gives sound advice based on experience.
But I grow nervous under observation and make a bigger ass of myself than usual, so I popped the rod back on the rests rather than demonstrate a perfect miscast, dropping the feeder in the margin and remembering (holy of holies!) to flick the 'runner on, just in case.
Smug in the knowledge that I'd avoided a screw-up, we chewed the fat for a while, until the insistent tick of a baitrunner drag alerted me to the fact that a fish had slipped up.
I promptly picked up the WRONG ROD, alarmed at the curious lack of resistance, and watched, horrified, as the feeder swung round the OTHER ROD in a diminishing spiral, with each turn of line neatly intersecting each coil of the pigtail eye of the Sidewinder indicator mounted thereon.
By this time, the hooked fish had built up a head of steam and the"live" rod (the new one, egad!) with line now tethered to the blank by tightly wound coils of finest 10lb mono, took off like an arrow.
To my credit (and I didn't realise I still possessed such reflexes) I managed to reach out at full stretch and grab the very last inch of handle, thus narrowly averting disaster. It didn't occur until much later that both rods could have gone swimming - ye gods
Strange choking noises from behind indicated that this farce was having the usual effect, but, to his credit, my young friend grabbed the other rod, so there was at least a slim chance of sorting the mess out.
Pulling the outfit towards me and grabbing the line forrard of the tangle to make a little slack, it must have taken ten minutes to sort out the resultant bird's nest, with the fish interrupting proceedings at intervals by reminding me of it's presence in the usual manner.
After ridding the live rod of the tangle, it soon became obvious that the line on this rod was also now wrapped round the pigtail, so it was back to work, yada , yada, yada....
Eventually, and the fish was still on by the way, a very pretty, but bored mirror of maybe two pounds (it probably had time to smoke a fag and have a laugh with it's mates) came to net, but I still hadn't finished, that would be too easy, wouldn't it?
By this point, thoroughly humiliated and fed up, I fumbled the net, the frame bounced on the end of the platform, catapulting the carp back from whence it came, whereupon I had to play it in again!
As if that wasn't enough, to add insult to injury, a stray dog took advantage of the confusion and ate the best part of a kilo of Cell boilies while our backs were turned, taking off when noticed, licking it's lips and with a ner, ner, ner, ner, ner expression on it's mug - I swear it was laughing too, the b'stard!
To make my embarrassment complete, on the way back to the car, one of the nuts fastening the wheel on one side of the Korum chair wheel kit came adrift. That side dropped like a stone, destabilising the lot and dumping it all in front of a gang of nubile schoolgirls walking in the opposite direction.
Why do I bother, eh?
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