Standing On My Own Two Feet

This is a series of occasional articles I hope will help anglers like me. I’m not an expert; far from it.

Maybe I should learn how to follow simple instructions but I’ve got this inquisitive nature that makes me ask hundreds of questions. And if I can’t learn more, then I’ll make it up as I go along until I get it right.

I’m positive that many of my concepts and ideas have been flogged to death and in fact whatever I apply to my fishing has already been proven and tested by other anglers. But the facts remain, I can’t sit on the bank not feeling confident – and whilst I do I’ll be looking for the next edge.

What I hope is that it will be a launch pad for some great discussion on the forum where, between us, we can create and discuss new and exciting theories that even the experts haven’t thought of.

After recently reading a post on the forum, where one of the anglers wrote “I’m 13 years old and I want to know what bait should I use to catch big carp and I don’t mean baby 15lb’ers”. It suddenly dawned on me, that I really have got the right approach to fishing. It seems that so many anglers are so intent on catching the ‘Biggy’ these days, that catching anything else is quite simply a pain in the arse!

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy beating my personal best from time to time, but not to the detriment of everything else I catch. Maybe my age is starting to creep up on me, at a ripe old age of 33 I’m obviously missing the point here. I work hard in a stressful environment all day and the last thing on my mind is to rush down to the lakeside and extend that stress by piling on more pressure to catch the biggest fish in the lake. Of course I’d like to land the monster one day, who wouldn’t – but to what end?

I know you’ve heard this a million times before from the experts and to be honest it took me an age to implement the following, but we should try to focus on locating where the fish hole up and start following their feeding habits. In fact, you might want to try visiting your regular venue without a rod and reel a few times to garner natural environment info (that’s what I do these days). Only the less experienced of us improvers will be too eager to put their rods out first – which are you?

To me, my carp fishing is a never ending apprenticeship in which only I will be able to judge when I’m ready to pass the final exams. And if ever I feel I’m ready to sit them, then I might as well give up! We’ve got some superb experts on FISHINGmagic (although they’re embarrassed by me classing them as such) and these guys have put in literally thousands of hours at the water’s edge. They have stocked up on a wealth of experience and revert to this mindset when a new challenging situation arises. For us improvers to obtain their level or expertise, we too would have to put in a similar amount of hours.

The facts remain, no matter how many new and exciting articles on rigs and baits are available today, unless we’re out there field testing them individually over prolonged periods we will never be qualified to state whether or not they work proficiently. There are no shortcuts to this apprenticeship in the pursuit of Mr. Carp, only elements of luck from time to time.

I don’t expect many to understand this, but I’m not necessarily after the 40’s and 50’s. If I catch the biggie at this stage of my quest, then I wouldn’t have learnt much, other than that Lady Luck was shining her light way too early. It’s strange, but as well as being excited about eventually catching the monsters that loom within my waters, I’m also wary about catching them too soon!

To fish a venue for a prolonged period, to learn by my mistakes, theories, surrounding weather conditions and opportunities that arise along the way, to field test what I believe will work on the day and then to be rewarded with the fish of my dreams at the end has got to be the ultimate prize.As I always state, I’m not an expert carp angler, far from it, but I am an expert on what it is I personally take from my fishing. Different people take different things from their fishing, but to get straight into specialist angling and catch the record fish on day one can surely only be a short term fix.

Where on earth do you get the next ‘high’ from?