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! 

[kevtaylor]

For me it's the things I forget like: mug, frying pan, leads although I have all except frying pan spare in the car now and gotta remember to put the spare mug back in the car from last trip.

Also forgot my sling and mat at Bluebell but luckily borrowed one off Trev the bailiff 👍

Have I lost a fish due to not checking the line - maybe I imagine, must have happened at some point.

Stupid things: stepping into 2inch of water just past the reeds, ended up sinking upto my shoulders in silt - very very scary, never go in without a prodding stick, falling in several times - head first once whilst reaching to clip backleads on, climbing a tree in waders - never do this the grip isn't there and never climb a tree whilst on a lake alone and over the water - I literally could have fallen and hit my head and noone would have known until the next day at the earliest.

Edited Wednesday at 13:59 by kevtaylor

[kevtaylor]

Put your shades on if pushing through undergrowth or climbing trees, you don't want to have something go in your eye during a trip 👍

Can you tell I'm accident prone yet? 🤣

[salokcinnodrog]

6 minutes ago, kevtaylor said:

Put your shades on if pushing through undergrowth or climbing trees, you don't want to have something go in your eye during a trip 👍

Can you tell I'm accident prone yet? 🤣

I've done that one, and required a hospital visit for a grass splinter in the eye. 

As for other stupid mistakes, leaving the tackle box at home a few times, requiring journeys home to pick it up from Weybread No.1, Suffolk Water Park and Earith.

I've left my rucksack at home, and this trip my hookbait bucket which also contained my medium Spomb.

Not checked a combi-rig knot after landing a fish, I just recast and on the next take the hooklink parted at the knot.

I've forgotten how many times I've fallen in from leaning over too far, a couple of times from a tree, and the numbers of pairs of sunglasses I have watched go 'plop' from the top of a tree, although at Yew Tree I did manage to recover a pair that fell off. 

Oh yes, the wading one, I even had a wading stick in hand, but as I waded back to land a large pike decided I was invading it's territory and went for the stick and me. I fell backwards and over the top of my chesties in water up to my chest. 

Oh yes, and I think possibly the worst, leaving my insect repellant at home and getting a bite that caused the blood poisoning which despite not being a disease, caused the life threatening illness I had last year.

[jules007]

Cant say i really make mistakes other than fishing this ruddy club lake that i used to fish and thought i new how to get a few out, but not really got a lot of choice so have to stick with endless blanks and dont help doing days only rather than sessions but night tickets are a long wait and i dont have bivvy and stuff no more

[framey]

Brand new alarms and pod left in swim when packing van up and having to go back 

jag compact pod set up (in grey when they first came out) 

and ace i3 alarms

total of about a grand lol

about the worst

 

Edited Wednesday at 16:26 by framey