| KEVIN PERKINS | |
Never mind smelling the flowers, don’t forget to take time out to see the satirical side of fishing life and grab a laugh along the way as well. So here’s a regular column from Kevin Perkins to remind us that life is for laughing at, or taking the p*** out of, whenever we can. |
CONFIDENCE TRICKS? Ah! Fishing with confidence. Does it come from being secure in the knowledge that you are using tried and tested techniques, or are you happier knowing that you are using the very latest up to the minute technology? Having just bought two new rods, I sat back the other day and thought – why? There is nothing really wrong with the old ones, which have served me well for ten years, other than they are ‘unfashionable’ at only eleven feet long. All I know is that that when I do take the new ones out, it will be with a spring in my step and that tingle of anticipation that comes from using something for the first time. They probably won’t cast any further, almost certainly will not catch me any more fish, and will spend 99.99% of the time sitting on the rod pod. But they will still be ‘better’ than the old ones! Is this something that is conditioned into us from an early age? Wasn’t it always the case that if you got a new bike for Xmas it was always faster than the old one? At school, didn’t new trainers help you to run faster; new football boots always made you score more goals (and give you impressive blisters!), indeed a new strip made the whole team play better. New pens wrote much neater, the first page in a new exercise book was always done in your very best handwriting (no, we didn’t have slates and chalk in my day! – although we did have an ink monitor who would come round and top up your inkwell) and so on. Later on in life I played minor league tennis, and whenever my game started to tail off the purchase of a new racquet would do wonders for a few weeks. I know golfers who have a love/hate relationship with their clubs that borders on the obsessive. New putters will be bought almost weekly. Old ones will be snapped in two, or slung in the back of the garage for months, only to be re-discovered and brought back into the fold at a later date like a returning prodigal son! Whilst we anglers are ever so slightly more genteel, we do get stuck in a rut when it comes to baits, methods or even venues. How many times have you decided to give a new venue a trial then thought better of it and settled for going somewhere ‘safe’. Even if you do go to your normal venue, is your day ruined because someone has beaten you to the ‘best’ swim? Do you just go through the motions because in your mind you are not in the right place? I well remember a trip to the local canal many, many years ago, after I had forgotten to reserve any bait at the local tackle shop. With no maggots there seemed like little point in going at all. In the end I finally decided to haul myself along anyway, with the only bait I could muster, half a sliced loaf. No red-letter day, but a couple of roach in the 6-8oz bracket, (fish of a size never seen before by my angling mates or myself) which were caught on tiny pieces of flake, made a pleasant change from the usual odd gudgeon and tiny perch. Despite this, maggots were still the first choice bait for every subsequent trip to the canal, although bread was taken, and occasionally used. Nowadays, if I am pike fishing I am never happy unless there is at least seventy-five yards between half a mackerel and me on one of the rods. Of course I realise that in some situations, mackerel is more likely to produce a run from a marauding fox, as a seventy-five yard cast performed on a drain, for instance, will put the bait two fields away! I have had very successful day’s pike fishing when I haven’t used mackerel at all, but I have always come away wondering if it might have been better if I had. Carp anglers must be placed in a similar dilemma when it comes to a choice of baits and flavours. If you have been using something that has been successful, but your catch rate is slowing down, do you stick with what you know, or change to something new? If you try something new, how long do you persevere if there are no results? Is it possible that the new bait is not attractive; are the fish still there; should you switch back to the old bait to check? What if both baits fail to produce – do you move swims? But in truth, isn’t that the very essence of fishing, isn’t it a blend of tradition with technology? If it was always a case of ‘Instant Fish – Just Add Water’ where would the challenge be in that, might as well fish in an aquarium (or carp puddle!). |
