| 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. |
| LESS IS MORE? Why is your tackle getting bigger? It may seem an impertinent question, but in these days of scorching, white heat technology, isn’t smaller, better? Doesn’t miniaturisation mean that less is more? We apparently now need so much gear to go fishing that an industry has sprung up to supply us with barrows to cart it all about. The next logical step is motorised trolleys, then golf buggies (in a delightful range of camouflage shades, of course!). Finally, we will see the folly of all this, and insist that the access to every swim is made via a tarmac surfaced road, so we can drive right up to the water’s edge. Each swim will in fact be a lay-by so that determined anglers can pitch caravans right where they fish. All mains services hook-ups provided, of course. Going back to tackle, rods seem to get longer and longer, but as any lady will tell you, length is no substitute for technique! Instead of splashing out several hundred pounds on a pair or even trio of the new ‘FastaCasta’ MkVIIa’s in order to add five yards to your casts, how about swallowing your pride, admit you may need help and book a few lessons with a casting coach. (It may even work out cheaper!). Golfers are more than happy to seek advice and tuition, why shouldn’t we anglers follow suit? And, by the way, how do we know that the fish have moved that little bit further away than we can cast to? If you are piling in bait at 110 yards distance, won’t it still be attractive to the fish if it is ‘only’ 55 yards away? Or is it a pre-supposed fact that any bait gets much more irresistible the further away from the bank you can get it? Actually, I wonder why coarse fishermen haven’t purloined that brilliant idea used by their fly fishing brethren, the belly boat (a pair or chest waders with a lorry tyre inner tube sewn around the top). Here is a device that lets you paddle out as far as you like in complete safety. Some are rated at eighteen stone, so a young, lightweight accomplice can be roped in to take 150lbs of bait out to your swim in one go! Show me the baitboat that has got that kind of capacity! This now begins to make sense of another of life’s little puzzles that has been worrying me, and that is the line capacity of reels. Why does a (recently announced ‘new’ model) coarse fishing reel have to carry 370 yards of line (sorry 339.79 metres!). Unless you are going to use the aforementioned baitboat or belly boater to carry your bait out, their ain’t no one who can cast that far. Indeed, I doubt that the reel is capable of delivering line fast enough to keep up with the speed the terminal tackle would have to reach to obtain that sort of distance (rocket scientists and trajectory specialists please discuss on separate thread!) without the line melting on the spool lip or rod rings. And don’t even think of trying to ‘feather’ the cast with the tip of your finger unless you enjoy the prospect of second-degree burns on your digits! Indeed, fishing at that sort of range will bring it’s own problems when it comes to the strike. Even with modern ‘low stretch’ lines, you will probably have to run backwards for at least two postcodes before you connect with the fish. Having done that, all you have to do is get the fish back to shore, that will just mean cranking the handle round over 600 times. I can see that the cases of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) will grow dramatically. Whilst your right arm might be accustomed to that amount of frantic action, your left may not be so well equipped, unless you are ambidextrous, or left handed. Perhaps some other form of coaching may be required to ensure both arms are suitably strengthened. It may well be that Jordan could be persuaded to bring out a ‘Workout for your Wrists’ video, all purely in the interests of improving your fishing, you understand! Last niggle this week is again about reels, and this applies to the one branch of the sport where the reel is the least used item of equipment, and that is fly-fishing. How can something which spends most of its working life doing nothing have to be so ‘well engineered’ and ‘machined from a solid bar stock’ of ‘aircraft grade alloy’ and ‘built to last a lifetime’ (who’s lifetime – Methuselah?) and have a ‘quick spool change facility’ (when did fly fishing become a race?) along with numerous other superlatives, that do nothing for its actual performance, but plenty for the price! How about fly line manufacturers supplying the line (ready spliced onto backing) on a cheap plastic spool that fits into a simply constructed universal frame? Less is more? Not when it comes to fishing, apparently! |
