Sometimes I question my long running love affair with angling, and the fact that I describe myself as a "pleasure angler" shouldn't be taken to imply that my fishing is always enjoyed, Normally it is, but not always.
Take today, for instance. I blanked on an easy commercial, the car nearly slid into the lake ("Danger: Deep Water"), and I needed to be towed out, for which I paid a tenner. There were 101 other things I could have done on my day off rather than go fishing, and I wish I had!
The day started well: the sunniest day so far this year, and a pleasant drive through the East Leicester countryside to a commercial I'd never fished before near Melton Mowbray. Internet research showed it to be a cracking summer water, with 7 lakes to choose from, and, with a high stock density, I figured it couldn't be too hard even in winter.
I set up with a method feeder and plastic corn, and cast to the edge of an island which looked like it would be a good bet and sat back and waited for the inevitable and unmissable pull on the quiver tip. It never came ........
No-one else was fishing, although a retired local angler came round for a chat, and informed me he never bothered fishing it till late spring as "it's rubbish this time of year." I swapped to a margin pole for a while, before returning to the method, but all to no avail.
I'm pretty sanguine about blanking (after 30 odd years of angling you tend to be!), but I wasn't prepared for what happened next.
After about 4 hours of unsuccessfully sending my feeder over to the island I decided it was time to call it a day, and so loaded the car, and prepared to drive off. I'd parked on a gravel track, and should just have reversed the 300 yards back to the main track, but instead I decided to turn round. Big mistake. I thought I could turn without going on the (soaking wet) grass, but my front wheels clipped the grass, and when I tried to reverse I went into an alarming slide towards the lake. There was nothing for it, but to put the handbrake on and go for help- the alternative was driving into 6 feet of water.
An ATV with towing gear turned up, and towed me off the grass, for which I was charged £10, and I left with my tail between my legs. I'm now grumpily brooding, not about the fishing (the carp weren't having it: simple as), but about the bad decision not to simply reverse. It's not like a tenner is that much money, and no-one's died (although had I carried on trying to drive on the wet grass I might have!), but it's just the knowledge and frustration of having made a bad decision.
#not a happy angler
