Kevin Perkins is one of those anglers who sees both the funny and darker side of life, and there are plenty of funny and dark goings-on in fishing. He’s the Alternative Angler who sees that side of things that most of us miss because we’re too busy going about the serious business of catching fish and often missing the strange, the satirical, and the plain comical along the way.
Never mind smelling the flowers, don’t forget to take time out to see the whacky side of fishing life and grab a laugh or a lament along the way.
Decisions, Decisions…
I was clearing out my garage, again, the other day, getting all my tackle out, (pause for cheap smutty double-entendré), and putting it all away, and it set me thinking (yes, I know, something
has to etc, etc.) If ever there was an angler who was set on getting a badge for having all the gear and no idea it certainly is me.
One of the reasons for my pathetic record of catching fish to date is an almost Mr Toad-like approach to trying something different rather than persevere with a particular tactic or bait until I’m successful at it. Flitting from one species or method to another has its drawbacks, of course. It results in you buying stuff with the best of intentions and then either use it only once or twice, or even worse, never at all.
I will confess right now to having a brand new bivvy that sits unopened in its cover. It’s not that I don’t want to use it, the planned summer overnighter never happened, for a variety of reasons and once you get them out of those damn bags they never go back in again, do they? I’ve even got the camping stove and utensils; part of the attraction of the overnighter was the thought of a nice brew and a bacon sandwich first thing in the morning.
To give you a further example of what I mean, my fly-fishing ‘ensemble’ was bought new for last year’s FM Press Manor outing and hasn’t seen water since. It will hopefully get dug out for this year’s trip, but I bet that will be about it for another year. Not sure how long fly lines last for, but you can be sure mine will have rotted long before they ever get worn out.
And just to confirm my madness, after having bought a perfectly good ‘beginners’ fly outfit with very nice lightweight carbon rod, I find I have the sudden and inexplicable urge to go onto eBay and bid like an idiot for a ‘vintage’ fibreglass Hardy’s R W Superlite (Trading Standards officers please take note of this most misleading description).
Whilst it might have been the mutt’s nuts in its day, I swear that this rod weighs more than the entire content of my rod holdall, and that includes the umbrella and banksticks too! All I can say is Richard Walker must have done a lot of wrist-strengthening exercises to while away the long hours he spent in the infamous ‘hut’…
And not only did I buy the rod, I bought a fly reel to go with it, so I could go out with a floating line on one rod, and a sinker on the other. I suppose this is to save me time swapping lines over if I’m fishing the wrong method and not ‘matching the hatch’ properly. Although the slight fault in that plan is that you have to catch a trout first so you can spoon it to find out what they’re taking. But if you’ve caught a trout, then surely you know, and if you haven’t, then you can’t spoon it to find out, can you?
Anyway, back to the tackle, and I suppose the four Avon/Quiver rods is probably a couple too many for any fishing that I’m likely to do in the near, or even distant future. In my ‘spare’ holdall there resides a ‘Porky Pig’ feeder rod. Just the one you will note, so that will never get an outing as rods have to be fishing in pairs, don’t they?
And speaking of single rods, I did give away a lone 2.5lb Shimano carp rod the other day, for that very reason, I only had the one. I do have a pair of 2lb rods that I need for something or other, don’t know what as I’ve never yet had them on the bank. The pairs of 2.5lb and 2.75lb rods will always come in handy, once I get round to using them.
Now, you are asking yourself, do I have reels for all of those rods? Well, of course I have, and a few spares as well. Oh, and there are a couple of spinning outfits too, all right, I have three rod/reel lure fishing sets. Four if you count the John Wilson ‘Six shooter’ abomination. Well, there are five actually, if you include the retro Sealy split cane/Mitchell 306 outfit that has been used once. (Hmmm, I’m beginning to think I might just be Peter Jacobs’ love child….!).
Given the amount of redundant tackle I have due to grand plans that never materialised, or fishing opportunities never taken and an obvious scattergun approach to the sport, the time has come to really get a grip and decide on just what it is that I want to fish for. And a worthy objective was pulled into sharp focus due to someone recently resurrecting a six year old forum thread I posted about the mythical (or otherwise) Thames trout.
So, I’ve renewed my Thames Lock and Weir Permit, and now the river trout season has started, I can keep the small pile of spinning gear and accoutrements, clear out all the other unnecessary tackle and concentrate on just one quarry from now on, sorted!
Except……. Carp to 30lbs, pike to 30lbs, bream to 12lb, tench to 6lbs, perch to 3lb, and rudd to 3lb 8oz., roach to 3lbs, hybrid to 6lbs. This is a quite interesting list of the fish available from a largely un-fished 200-acre lake I know of. The reason I know is because if a planned house move comes off, this lake will be just behind the fence at the bottom of my garden!
So, I could keep the Avon rods for the perch, roach and rudd, the 2lb rods should be ideal for the bream and tench, the 2.5 and 2.75lb rods will do nicely for the pike and carp. The Porky Pig could go, but I will also be within spitting distance of a river that has b*rb*l in it, so I had better keep it for that reason.
Only the fly gear to go on eBay then? Well it could, but there is also a v.large trout reservoir quite close by to the planned house move, so it may get some use there after all. In fact, with all this fishing so close to hand, I might just need some new gear. That’s quite a big lake, so some more meaty rods would be an advantage, maybe 3lbs, might even need to go up to 3.25lbs to really get my gear out, or would I be better off with a baitboat for the long distance work
Decisions, decisions…!
