Your personal eureka moment?

binka · Jun 4, 2016

This is as much a confessional as anything else.

I can remember buying my first bag of groundbait, I was a kid of around nine or ten years old and I had wandered into Woolworths during the school holidays to admire their collection of “easy chip” floats in their fishing section.

My nose was drawn to a sweet smell on the bottom shelf where a burst bag of groundbait lay amongst the other bags… It smelt sweet, interesting.

I had to have a bag and the next day I was beside my local lake but with no mixing instructions on the bag I was at a loss as to what to do with it.

I opened the bag, dug out a handful and with great gusto I chucked it as far as I could… Only to end up with a face full of sweet smelling powder!

I sat down and pondered, after deciding that it was going to get wet anyway I mixed it with some water.

Eureka!

mg:

Anyone have a similar story?

mightyboosh · Jun 5, 2016

Sort of, but for saltwater stuff. When the penny finally dropped that I was nearly always out-fished by people using far heavier leaders than me. I would say that fish generally don't pay much attention what your hook is attached to, but they do pay attention to how the bait or lures behaves.

no-one in particular · Jun 5, 2016

I wouldn't exactly call it a eureka moment but solving a problem. fishing off the pier the Bass used to lay under it and the method was waving a sand eel under it in the current. This meant holding the rod down over the pier as there was a cross member just under it full of barnacles so you had to lean over the railing holding the rod down low at an angle.
I got fed up with this so made a 6ft rod rest with a big V at one end at right angles that clamped on the pier railing the other end with big wing nuts and tied the but of the rod to it so the whole rod was sticking out and down from the railing.
Did get some really funny looks, imagine all the rods propped up along the railings and mine was hanging out in mid air sticking out pointing down towards the sea with no one holding it, but it worked and I caught some great Bass. Boy, did they thump it and the whole contraption would bend but it held out.

peterjg · Jun 5, 2016

I can clearly remember carp fishing, sitting my bivvy (in the 1980s) trying to work out how to stop getting tangles with Dacron hooklengths. I sat fiddling with rigs and came up with the idea of tying the lead to the end of the line and having the Dacron hooklength rotate above it. I remember walking to the far end of the lake (no one else there) and spent ages casting out to see if it tangled. It is now called the helicopter rig. Of course, I am sure that many other anglers had also come up with the same idea before me but it was quite a few years before I actually saw the rig in print.

barbelboi · Jun 5, 2016

As we know ‘nothing is new in fishing’ it’s just something that has (generally) not yet been publicised. However, some 20 years ago, my son and I were hair rigging a small hook to the shank of a larger hook and loading it with maggots (capped off with a small bit of cork, then later a plastic maggot, to mask the second hook’s point and give neutral buoyancy). This was usually for tench, paired with a maggot feeder.

Bink’s mention of a maggot clip in the ‘How...............’ thread brought that one to mind.....

naxian62 · Jun 5, 2016

After being away from our glorious sport for close on 30 years. It took me quite some time to figure out you're supposed to have the backwind engaged if you're fishing using the baitrunner/freespool facility of a reel....!!!
Reel handles would spin, a lot.

laguna · Jun 5, 2016

The day I realised as a young boy, you shouldn't take fishing advice from your mother!
My mum said anglers use big hooks to catch big fish, it sorta made sense when I was 8 year old right?
So I nicked a big treble hook from Woolworth and went down to the park pond with a huge bamboo pole and some string and I stuck a maggot on each prong... much to the amusement of other anglers, I fished like this all day..... for little roach!

mg:

thecrow · Jun 5, 2016

When I woke up one winters morning lying on a concrete reservoir covered in frost I discovered that an old GPO overcoat was no protection from the cold, I am sure i was near to hyperthermia that morning but I did have a 22-11 pike that day to make up for it.

mightyboosh · Jun 5, 2016

laguna said:
The day I realised as a young boy, you shouldn't take fishing advice from your mother!
My mum said anglers use big hooks to catch big fish, it sorta made sense when I was 8 year old right?
So I nicked a big treble hook from Woolworth and went down to the park pond with a huge bamboo pole and some string and I stuck a maggot on each prong... much to the amusement of other anglers, I fished like this all day..... for little roach! mg:

Don't worry, think I tried the static spinner under the float trick when I was around the same age. Strangely, it didn't work.

Derek Gibson · Jun 5, 2016

It's many years back now, but discovering how effective Spinnerbaits could be was an eye-opener.

Ironic really when I had already had some in my lure box,(courtesy of relatives in Ontario, Canada) for five years prior to using them. Why you may ask, well it was simply a case of them looking so ''Mickey Mouse''. How wrong was I, as the following years proved.

And to use a quote from Fred Wagstaff, the first season of use, I caught more big Pike than any reasonable Pike angler could expect, a revelation indeed.

bracket · Jun 5, 2016

For me it was when I was 15. I'd not long begun my apprenticeship and the tradesman I was working with was a match angler. He demonstrated a sliding loop knot to me which he tied like lightning using his thumb, forefinger and index finger. It was like watching someone do "cats cradle" if anyone can remember that. Took me a fortnight to master it and I still use it today to attach a hook length when river fishing. Very satisfying moment for me. Although at the time it was quite painful as I was being given instructions on how to use an hacksaw and if I didn't push to blade through parallel this guy would hit me on the point of the elbow with a 18" steel rule. After the third administration I said "Do that one more time Pal and I will deck you" he replied by hitting me so hard my arm went numb from my finger tips to my shoulder. So from then on I kept my mouth shut and did as I was told, the only way to learn. I included this digression because when I got well hit I think I cried out eureka, or perhaps it was something else. Pete.

Clodhopper · Jun 5, 2016

As a relative newcomer to the sport, every first occasion on which my use of a standard technique is first successful is like a eureka moment. Certainly this was true of my first chub on trotted bread flake. And on link-legered flake too.

For a couple of years I was a member of a trout fishing 'syndicate' on some idyllic estate lakes. I pitched up at one lake late one evening at about this time of the year and the surface was boiling with feeding rainbows. The only evident insect life was the sedge flies dancing in circles just above the surface. So I tied on a cinnamon sedge dry and tried skimming it across the pond. Nothing. I tried a few patterns and presentations.. still nothing. It was getting darker and so was my mood.

Then I remembered I had bought a packet of traditional wet flies a while before and vaguely remembered reading that the Wickhams Fancy pattern was developed as an emerging sedge imitation. Perhaps they were taking the emerging insect, not the one on show?

I tied one on. First cast... BANG!

A good moment.

john step · Jun 6, 2016

As a kid when I discovered A PLUMMET. I couldn't work out why the older boys with longer rods caught fish and I couldn't get a bite when using my new 7 foot fibre glass spinning rod.

Also Pete Bracket....How things have changed. I think nowadays apprentices getting a whack would be running for the law and compensation.

S-Kippy · Jun 6, 2016

Not fishing related but I had a bit of a "eureka" moment yesterday when I discovered that pressure washers generally work very much better when the power is switched on ! I was cursing the useless girly pressure of my latest purchase unaware that Mrs S had unplugged me to put the washing on. Fortunately I'd only done 2 chairs......

mg:

mikench · Jun 6, 2016

Again as a novice and never having fished on the method before with a quiver tip, I really did not know quite what to expect. The little taps were what I thought was a clear cut bite and when I struck I caught nothing. The day, not so long ago when the tip went about 90degrees to the rod was my eureka moment and one I will never forget. My first proper bream of about 4lb. What a feeling!

Buoyed by this feeling of greatness I bought some scales and a weigh sling! Yet to catch anything which justified either. However I can still see and feel that quiver tip move!

bracket · Jun 6, 2016

Also Pete Bracket....How things have changed. I think nowadays apprentices getting a whack would be running for the law and compensation.[/QUOTE]

Too true John. I began at 15 years old and you were pitched in straight away with adult, hard-boiled, straight in your face, tradesmen, who stood no messing. You had to grow up quick, running to your mother was not an option. Pete.

Bob Hornegold · Jun 6, 2016

For me the eureka moment was fishing boilies on a hair rig in rivers, in still waters I had use them for years and thought the bare hook would catch lots of rubbish in flowing water.

How wrong could I have been, I took some river venues apart using bolt rigs and boilies.

Especially in flood conditions.

Bob

Mark Wintle · Jun 6, 2016

Bob Hornegold said:
For me the eureka moment was fishing boilies on a hair rig in rivers, in still waters I had use them for years and thought the bare hook would catch lots of rubbish in flowing water.

How wrong could I have been, I took some river venues apart using bolt rigs and boilies.

Especially in flood conditions.

Bob

I was persuaded to try boilies for the first time on Throop in 2005; unbelievable! And one bag lasted a whole summer. I didn't use bolt rigs though, just very light link legers. For a dyed in the wool match angler used to needing pints of casters it was a revelation.

robtherake · Jun 6, 2016

The day I realised that you should assemble a multi-section rod starting at the tip - I'd only been fishing a couple of weeks and was solo, with no tuition whatsoever. I remember thinking - as I backed the rod into the bushes to get the tip on - "How the hell does anyone get a longer rod put together?"

mg:
The answer - when it dawned - made me laugh till I nearly peed meself.

---------- Post added at 19:40 ---------- Previous post was at 19:31 ----------

mikench said:
Again as a novice and never having fished on the method before with a quiver tip, I really did not know quite what to expect. The little taps were what I thought was a clear cut bite and when I struck I caught nothing. The day, not so long ago when the tip went about 90degrees to the rod was my eureka moment and one I will never forget. My first proper bream of about 4lb. What a feeling!

Buoyed by this feeling of greatness I bought some scales and a weigh sling! Yet to catch anything which justified either. However I can still see and feel that quiver tip move!

I had a similar (albeit reversed) eureka moment, quivertipping for stillwater bream in cold weather, when the tip went round a quarter-inch and held. The answering strike met with solid resistance and all of a sudden I was putting twice as many fish on the bank, hitting bites that had previously been dismissed as false indications.

S-Kippy · Jun 6, 2016

robtherake said:
I had a similar (albeit reversed) eureka moment, quivertipping for stillwater bream in cold weather, when the tip went round a quarter-inch and held. The answering strike met with solid resistance and all of a sudden I was putting twice as many fish on the bank, hitting bites that had previously been dismissed as false indications.

What a great tip ! I must remember NOT to strike if that happens to me. Or to go bream fishing in cold weather...or indeed any sort of weather.

Your personal eureka moment?

binka

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