land of make believe

Lord Paul of Sheffield · Jul 11, 2016

Mt fishing mate is a good angler and I've seen him catch plenty of big fish , he's always caught more when I'm not with him

On a recent trip I caught a carp of 14lb 3oz that being the biggest fish of the day. As we were loading the car up to leave he got talking to another angler and he told the bloke I'd caught a carp of 16lb
now if he exaggerated my fish what does he do with his own catches

mikench · Jul 11, 2016

Some people cannot help but to exaggerate :wh

Peter Jacobs · Jul 11, 2016

Lord Paul of Sheffield said:
As we were loading the car up to leave he got talking to another angler and he told the bloke I'd caught a carp of 16lb now if he exaggerated my fish what does he do with his own catches

Reckon he was he using 'spiders' scales then?

Keith M · Jul 11, 2016

We had a club chairman (now deceased) who was well known for occasionally stretching the truth. I remember one day catching 4 large roach between 1lb 4oz and 1lb 12oz while he was there and within a couple of days he had told lots of people that I had caught six roach that were all over 2lb. He was a great guy but you always had to take what he said with a small pinch of salt.

Keith

The Runner · Jul 11, 2016

One of our former club members was notorious for this- he used to get some superb bags of fish when nobody else was there, especially on our local river.
It became the rule of thumb to divide pretty much everything he told you by three; we think he got wind of this as after a while he only seemed to catch prime numbers of chub in a session....

S-Kippy · Jul 11, 2016

There are more than a few like that about. I don't understand this....the only people they are fooling are themselves.

peterjg · Jul 11, 2016

For quite a few years I used to fish with a 'friend' who was a compulsive liar. At first it was very amusing but it eventually became very tiresome. Other club members used to say to me how do you put up with his lies, I used to defend him but the lies became too much. Shame really, he was a nice chap and a decent fisherman with no need to lie.

Graham Elliott 1 · Jul 11, 2016

No need to lie.

Be a good name for a book that.

john step · Jul 11, 2016

There are some that lie outright but I feel others are a bit numerically dyslexic?

Also there are the "estimaters". So many 5lb tench that you would lucky to push 3 and a half. I have seen similar with roach and perch. I feel that it a lack of experience with most of them ...this being the biggest fish they have caught and not possessing scales as they never thought they would catch anything bigger than the normal tiddlers.

An estimated " near 2lb "roach after a couple of tellings soon becomes " at least 2lb" and eventually becomes "well over 2 lb". It was probably one nand a quarter to start if accurately weighed.

S-Kippy · Jul 11, 2016

john step said:
There are some that lie outright but I feel others are a bit numerically dyslexic?

Also there are the "estimaters". So many 5lb tench that you would lucky to push 3 and a half. I have seen similar with roach and perch. I feel that it a lack of experience with most of them ...this being the biggest fish they have caught and not possessing scales as they never thought they would catch anything bigger than the normal tiddlers.

An estimated " near 2lb "roach after a couple of tellings soon becomes " at least 2lb" and eventually becomes "well over 2 lb". It was probably one nand a quarter to start if accurately weighed.

Yes, yes and yes. Though I say it myself I have always been pretty good at estimating weights [within a couple of ounces] and no end of times I've seen fish "estimated" at way over what they actually were. I've lost count of how many 6lb tench I've been shown that would be lucky to make 4.

thecrow · Jul 11, 2016

Doesn't bother me if someone exaggerates their own fish just fooling themselves but using someone else's name to corroborate the exaggeration is for me not on.

I once weighed a pike for a chap, before I weighed it I told him it looked around 14/15 pounds, he said it must be over 20 and when weighed it went almost 15, a few days later another angler said that so and so had caught a 20 and that I had weighed it for him at that weight. Next time I saw him I "explained" my displeasure at what he had done and never spoke to him again.

rayner · Jul 11, 2016

Some people are branded liars with no proof, it may well have been an error. He may well have remembered a fish he caught and got mixed up.
If definitive proof is found would that be worth losing a friend for to point that out.
If your fishing mate is that important to you forget his joshing, if his tall tales bother you find another mate.

thecrow · Jul 11, 2016

rayner said:
Some people are branded liars with no proof, it may well have been an error. He may well have remembered a fish he caught and got mixed up.
If definitive proof is found would that be worth losing a friend for to point that out.
If your fishing mate is that important to you forget his joshing, if his tall tales bother you find another mate.

He wasn't a mate. He was someone that was struggling to unhook a Pike and after watching him struggle I offered to help, there was no mistake by him when telling others the fish was 20 pounds he thought before weighing that it was 20 and must have been disappointed when it wasn't, so disappointed he decided to say it was 20, if he hadn't used me to corroborate the weight I wouldn't have given a $h!t.

I can understand him getting mixed up as 15 really sounds like 20 eh?

Lord Paul of Sheffield · Jul 11, 2016

It's one thing to over estimate the weight of a fish but when you have weighed a fish and both know the weight why tell another angler a different weight

barbelboi · Jul 11, 2016

I've come to the conclusion that anyone with longer arms than me is a better fisherman...............

john step · Jul 11, 2016

barbelboi said:
I've come to the conclusion that anyone with longer arms than me is a better fisherman...............

Or a liar

mikench · Jul 12, 2016

I am not aware that orcs actually fish

bracket · Jul 12, 2016

Estimating fish weights can be difficult. I have never caught a 2lb roach. The nearest I came to that was in a club match 35 years ago. I took a fish I estimated to be well in excess of 2lb and told the guys each side of me as much. Come scale facing time I asked the weighter in to put it on the pan separately and of course I was wildly wrong, which goes to show that even the most straight forward and pragmatic of us can make a genuine mistake. It hit the dial at 1lb 15oz 8drms. Pete. ?

steve2 · Jul 12, 2016

When we first started fishing I am sure that we all over estimated the weight of our catch. Very few of us carried scales and if we did it was a pair of Little Samson scales not the most accurate and normally weighed 4ozs divisions or more.
If people want to live in the world of make believe good luck to them it is a far better place than the real one.

chub_on_the_block · Jul 12, 2016

On the club outings many moons ago it was typical for some members to understate what they had caught until the weigh in. "A few small dace" at 3pm would transform into 10Ib+ of roach, dace and chub by the whistle an hour later.

land of make believe

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