Stupid Mistakes to Avoid

[Golden Paws]

They say that humans learn by making mistakes. Unfortunately some of us make the same mistakes over and over again and never learn!

It's confession time, what stupid (fishing only!) mistakes have you made that cost you fish and you went home kicking yourself.

About a month ago I was staring down the barrel of a 48 hour blank on a water I knew pretty well and had caught fairly consistently in the past. Fish were coming out but mainly at the top end of the lake and I was at the bottom. That said, the blokes either side of me had caught, so I can't use that as an excuse. At 3 a.m. on the final morning I had a bite and a chance to redeem myself. Struck into a good fish and played it for a good 10 seconds and then everything went limp. I did feel the fish rub on a bit of weed but when I inspected the line, I found it was shredded and even worse, I don't think it happened at that point. I used to place the hook into the zip on my haversack and walk off a good 20 yards of line and tighten the clutch and put the rod into it's full fighting curve to check the line but somewhere along the line, I got out of the habit of doing it. I'll certainly be doing it in the future. After that, I also started to put my finger and thumb on the line by the fist eye when reeling in and feel for any nicks or kinks. Line is cheap, don't risk it!

Another time I had a  pig-tail on my main line of about a rod length, so cut the line at the Korda Safezone leader and reattached it. The next bite I had, I struck and straight away lost the fish and reeled in just the knot. I had almost certainly cut a bit off the leader and seriously weakened it. It's no good writing a letter to Danny Fairbrass, it was 100% my fault. Now when I reattach a leader, I always grip the fused end with my finger and thumb to protect it and cut a few mm above the join and pull the loosened knot off with my teeth.

As an aside, I highly rate Safezone leader, in fact I never cast out without one. Rob Hughes has said that when he goes diving and checking out rigs, he follows the line so far then on the bottom looks for the leadcore or tubing, I don't use either! When I watch some of the underwater video's, I can't believe the fish haven't sussed that the one with the hook is 6 inches past the obvious bit! 

So came on then, when stupid things have you done?

[greekskii]

Not walking enough to locate fish, not moving on to fish & convincing myself I’m close enough!