Your fishing turmoils...

Aside from blanking, what would you say the worst things are that have happened to you while fishing?

I think my top 5 are (in no particular order)

- Birdsnesting my line with a fish on, then having to try and hand-line it in
- Cutting myself on tins!! Horrible!
- Duck ate my hook and flew off once, fortunately my baitrunner was on and I had some scissors handy
- Accidentally catching pike on coarse tackle, having no forceps and having to unhook it by hand... Resulted in bleeding and a scar :-(
- (worst one by far) falling in the River Trent at 3am on a cold springtime overnighter!!

So what are yours?

---------- Post added at 16:41 ---------- Previous post was at 16:40 ----------

I also got pooped on by a seagull today, caught loads though so it must be good luck!

Fell in, reaching after a dropped pasty (the last of my vittles!)

The reservoir slope went from nothing to 12 feet at just a yard out...somehow managed to spin round and ended up nose-deep facing in-over but out of reach of anything to grab hold of, full wellies only just gripping on.

I spent several tense minutes inching forwards before mercifully managing to grab the landing net, snag it in the brambles and haul myself out.The relief was like being reborn. It could so easily have been fatal - club rules insisted the gate was kept locked, the fences are twelve feet tall and I was alone and completely out of earshot of anyone save the odd dog walker. Bloody scary, it was!

Holding the line in my mouth to get it taught whilst looking down into the mouth of a tench to unhook it in the landing net when the hook pinged out by itself and shot straight up my right nostril!

After jiggling about with a disgorger for a good five minutes with streaming eyes all I had managed to achieve was push it deeper before remembering I had a small pair of tweasers for holding hair stops and I finally managed to get the hook free with those... much to the delight of my mate who was by now in uncontrollable hysterics!!!



Edited to add: Almost forgot the following which happened in January of this year...

I was barbel fishing with the same mate who just happens to hate eels with a passion, scared to death of 'em.

I'd had a few rattles on meat and reeled in to find an eel of around a pound angrily snaking around on the hook and decided to swing it over to tease my mate with who was sitting a couple of yards downriver... except that I caught it on his bank stick on the way across and it promptly did a figure of eight and tied itself around the blank of his rod and the rod rest, fastening the two together!

Fortunately for him the eel let go and I unhooked and returned it all good and well, and I was left getting disgusted looks for the remainder of the day as his rod blank and rod rest literally dripped with slime.




And finally, for now...

Same said mate lends me a bite alarm whilst on the river one day.

I've never owned a bite alarm and we were fishing under a bridge and I'd walked around a stansion to fish under a separate arch.

I went to put the bank stick with the bite alarm on it into the ground and found it too rocky so I built a small pile of rocks around it and promptly turned around to pick my rod up when I heard a grating sound followed by a splash!

The bank stick had fallen over into the river and totally submerged the bite alarm.

I picked it back up and sheepishly walked back around to my mate who hadn't realised what had happened and I made a comment to him about changing my mind before sticking the bank stick in the ground a couple of yards away and as it was tipping it down I thought I might get away with rain getting into the contacts because the LED was constantly on, until the damn alarm began a slow and wobbly, continuous whine that gradually got higher and higher pitched whilst we looked at each other in silence until the point where it was about to shatter our fillings before promptly falling silent again.

This time it was me that was in uncontrollable hysterics and with a dead pan face he just looked at me and said,

"You've gone and dropped it in... haven't you!"

fishing in 3 feet of fast flowing ice cold water for grayling lost my footing
went over chest waders filled up lost my hat and glasses and my mate well
he was as much use as a chocolate teapot being convulsed with laughter.