| I’m pretty sure all of you, even if not associated with fishing, have experienced a hunch. Certainly if not, you must have seen a TV show or two where the leading detective upon nailing his crook, admits his initial suspicions were aroused by way of a hunch, and upon nurturing those feelings he was then able to prove the individual’s doubtless guilt. Basically some sort of sixth sense allowed the detective to perhaps scrutinise one individual more closely than the rest, to maybe subconsciously focus with more energy in areas he would not have otherwise bothered with.
In a nutshell, the detective harboured a feeling whereby he simply knew that the Vicar’s gardener was the miscreant who poured arsenic into Lady Faverham’s tea. Anyway, I digress! I hope during the next few pages, to highlight and perhaps open discussion upon what I see as an important tool in an angler’s armoury, the ‘Hunch’. First of all, lets define what is meant by the word hunch, here we see its meaning in its form as a noun, as given by the online Oxford Dictionary: Hunch – A feeling or guess based on intuition Let me now highlight my own personal perception of a ‘hunch’: Hunch – A feeling that grows inside me, whereupon I simply know if I follow a certain path, I am going to get a result! It is an intuitive, almost paranormal inner strength, which will result in my absolute maximum effort, in order to achieve an end reward. Now that may appear to be a load of old codswallop to some, perhaps you may think I am being a little melodramatic? Well if I said that in 25 years of angling I have only ever experienced four, perhaps five hunches and have enjoyed a great result on each and every one. That perhaps puts things in perspective. When I talk about a hunch, I’m not referring to the times I’ve looked in the papers at the match results and turned up in the right area and managed a good fish, or a good feeling I’ve had about a water. I am very seriously referring to an immensely rare emotion I’ve experienced; and one that has seen me spring into action, ensuring I’ve been able to take full advantage of the situation. I like to think I’m a fairly sensitive guy, certainly friends and colleagues have often commented on my ability to take things far in excess of the seriousness in which they were meant. I take things personally! Many of us do, but has this not been to our advantage in other ways? Perhaps I am a little more closely tuned into my feelings than the average Neo Nazi; but then again, he will probably beat me hands down at throwing a shot put! My own personal view on this is I perhaps rely more strongly upon my initial gut feeling than others may do. These ‘gut’ feelings probably come from finely honed senses, which pick up changes in the atmosphere, the mood and god only knows what else. I honestly believe in what has been termed the ‘Sixth Sense’. I’ve been in situations both fishing and with other scenario’s, when I have absolutely known that something was going to happen, and it has! So where does this all fit in with Angling then? As mentioned before, I have on a small number of occasions been filled with an immense instinct. A feeling that has all but consumed me and has had me climbing the walls to get out and onto the bank. The first one I remember saw me getting out of bed at 2am on a cold, windy November morning, driving to and pulling myself across a gravel pit on what can only be described as a ‘death trap’ boat. The boat itself was half a foot deep in water and attached to a wire tightrope, why on earth would I go to such lengths? After all, I’d been in the pub the day before and owed the wife a day’s shopping, she’d be absolutely livid waking up to find me having gone fishing, my life wouldn’t be worth living, so why did I go? I’d awoken with a rock solid instinct that if I was on my local water in front of the island a couple of hours before the dawn feeding spell, I’d get an awesome result! Did it pay? You bet it did! At 4.30am, after getting sorted out and having cast in only about 15 minutes earlier, I had a large Zed, bigger than any I’d ever seen, flapping about on the unhooking mat! It went 11lbs 9oz. OK, to some specialist specimen hunters that may not seem like too big a deal, I was using a couple of old leger rods, strike bobbins and at the time it was by a long way the best specimen I’d ever landed! I only fished for about 3 hours before sacking it due to a lack of bait. It was also accompanied by the following fish: Zander 9lb 12oz Not a bad haul for a lad sat on a B&Q garden chair who a year before, had a carp of about 4.12 as a big fish PB! I could do with a catch like that again sometime, preferably soon! Due to the fact that I was back in the house by 9am, I didn’t actually get verbally flayed alive by the wife and finished my outings for the day, celebrating with her over a nice Sunday pub lunch! Another big hunch result occurred in October 2001. At the time I was fishing the Middle Level system heavily, spending time on the 20ft, the 40ft and the Middle Level Main Drain itself. I wasn’t having a bad season either with a couple of good doubles already under my belt. I had been venturing out on evenings after work, the weather that year being as near to perfect conditions as I’d seen in a long, long time. However, my main assault was weekends, when I’d treat myself to a couple of nights on the bank before travelling back to square my admin away on the Sunday. Come October, my weekend assaults were all taking place on the actual Main Drain. I had always tended to fish around the areas of St Peters Bridge, at the lower end of the drain or up at Pingles Bridge, towards the very upper reaches. I had never really forayed much in-between. So how weird was it when one week, all through my working days I had an absolutely gut wrenching feeling to fish near Rungays Bridge. I swear to the big man, I cannot understand it at all as apart from on the map, I’d never even set eyes upon the place; but there you go. The week passed pretty slowly and on Friday afternoon, with a bucket of fresh lives I headed towards Rungays, before turning left down a track and driving for half a mile before seeing a nice unoccupied swim. Three rods were cast, two lives and a dead and I waited, not for long though as a medium sized Zed came at dusk. I won’t bore you with the story of the night but here is the result of the catch: Zander, 11lb 10oz A very good catch for a single night and so I decided to stay. As luck would have it, the first people I met that morning in my very secluded spot, were half a dozen local boyos driving what can only be described as a rally car with a sharks face painted on the front! Tattoo’s glinting in the morning sun, terse threats of violence ringing out in the fresh morning air, it would appear that I had stumbled onto a very secluded swim the guys had cut out and had been pre-baiting for bream! I for sure didn’t know and although the fact was, I was bricking it big style, I did try hard not to let it show. I like to think that these guys were in fact nice hoodlums and thus respected the fact that I had gotten there first and therefore applied the rules of cricket thus not beating me to a pulp whilst treating me to a watery end! The next guy I met that day was indeed the late, great, Mark Vials, who came over to say hello. I recognised him from magazines and Steve Younger’s book. I felt genuinely sorry for him as he explained he too had felt a bit of an urge to fish the area and having driven all the way up from Blandford down in Dorset, had found Disco Dave in his swim and thus was scuppered. Still, we had a great chat and I listened intently to some of the stories and great tips he offered!
The last and perhaps for me, the most satisfying hunch was the one which resulted in my personal best Zander of 13lbs and 11oz. The story starts on the 20ft in October 2003 with a Saturday night spent near Beggars Bridge. I managed a pretty medium sized 20ft Zed of 7lb 6oz, it is fair to say that the 20ft certainly isn’t the easiest Zander venue within the Fens, however, the average size of fish seems to be a little higher in my opinion, than that of other drains. As I packed the gear away in the morning, I noticed some fish breaking the surface on the far bank. Within a few minutes I had the waggler rod out and was busying myself catching a few roach and rudd, all destined for the bait bucket. I ended up with about a dozen or so and decided to call it a day, as usual once the first few hours of light were established, the wind had decided to show itself in its finest glory and it was time to go. Luckily my good mate Nick lives exactly half way between the drain and my house. A quick phone call and a meet was sorted. Half an hour later, Nick and I were chewing the fat regarding Zander whilst each squaring a nice bacon butty away, accompanied by a steaming mug of coffee, courtesy of his good lady Kerry! I can’t explain what had happened but as I drove home that morning, I was tempted to have a quick wash and head in a slightly different direction; to that of the Great Ouse and to an area I’d never fished in my entire life, I was literally being pulled towards the area by an strong emotional force!
I sorted all of my gear out later on that morning, enjoyed a shower, shave and some well earned lunch. Once all was sorted I then headed down my local for a few beers, why not indeed. All that day I’d been absolutely gasping to get fishing however I had to hold my impetuousness in check. I had to be up at 7am and had a big day at work to contend with. That was it then, I was going to have an evening session on the Monday night! Come the next day and all through work, my tiny mind was ensconced with thoughts of the Great Ouse. To cut my prattling to the quick, all day long nothing went my way, in the end I got back home an hour later than normal, gutted. Ten seconds later and I was just in the process of opening a beer thinking ‘Sod it, I’ll go tomorrow night’, when sanity took over and I realised that I simply had to go. The 160 mile round trip to fish for four hours seeming as normal to me, as brown sauce on a Bratwurst Sausage! I sat for three hours and 45 minutes without a run, yet I didn’t for a second feel that something awesome wasn’t going to happen. This is the whole point of my ‘hunch’ theory, the feeling you get is astounding, you are absolutely sure something good is going to come off. With only 15 minutes to go until my midnight curfew, an alarm went and I managed a nice pike of 18lb 6oz, certainly a result but not nearly enough to have me believing that this was the reward for my hunch. I had never fished this stretch of the Great Ouse and haven’t again to this day; but for a couple of days, everything within my whole being had screamed to be there. I had promised myself I’d take my rods in at 12pm, sure as fate with only five minutes to go, an alarm screamed into action once more. I struck, the rod buckled as another good fish was on, hugging the bottom and making some powerful runs across the river. Once landed and weighing in at 13lbs 11oz, the Zander completely repaid my faith in the hunch! To summarise, I really feel there is mileage in this theory. I look forward to seeing any discussion which may be provoked and appear on the forum. There is definitely something there, in my opinion. I really don’t believe it is just a whim or even simple coincidence. I’ve caught a fair few half decent fish, PB pike for instance, on the result of everything ‘feeling right’, yet only a very few times have I ever experienced the driving force of a true ‘hunch’! The next time you think you have a ‘good’ feeling about a venue or a trip, don’t ignore it, you may well be in for a pleasant surprise. I guarantee a hunch upon the scale I am talking about, will leave you with an absolutely insatiable hunger to bin everything in order to do whatever it takes, to quench your particular angling thirst; but the rewards can truly be fantastic! |
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