Following my disaster at the local park and canal I needed to get back on the bank and catching fish. My pride had been dented a little and I was suffering a little self doubt from my experience, but I had identified where I had gone wrong. I had not plumbed and checked the depth of either lake or canal, I had just launched my line in with no preparation of either swim and believed that I was sure to catch something. The fishing Gods had bitch slapped me back into reality and I felt suitably admonished. I needed to get back out there before self doubt took over and I put the rods away and gave up like I have done in the past on so many occasions. I knew that if I gave up now I would never go again and so I looked at the positives, I had identified where I had gone wrong with my approach and attitude, I should have plumbed the depth, I should have had more patience and not move from swim to swim so often and give the fish a chance to bite.
There are a few lads at work who are keen anglers, Luke, Damian and Richard, and we decided to start our own little fishing club and visit different fisheries around the UK, using our company vans to transport us and our gear around them. We decided that our first club get together would take place on the last Bank Holiday (25th May) at Friezeland Pool in Bosworth, Leicestershire, the place where Luke had taken me on that first adventure two Sunday's previously. To say I was a little nervous after the previous weekends disaster was putting it mildly; I had been plagued by self doubt all week and even started to think that by telling people that I hadn't wasted the time spent sitting on the bank because I had used the time practice my casting and learned a valuable lesson about preparation of tactics and the swim was just my way of trying cover up the failure and put on this brave face . I think this may have been more for my own benefit rather than everyone else as I recognised the old anxieties returning about being useless.
Around half of those people who experience depression will also experience anxieties of one sort or another and taking steps to manage these feelings can help give you the mental space to begin to deal with your depression. Talking about what is making you anxious, as well as a healthy diet and exercising, will all help you to control your anxiety but this is where I had backed myself into a corner because over the last few years I had become a social recluse. I had cut myself off from friends and locked myself away in my own little world where I knew that I wasn't going to be hurt by anyone. By going fishing I have re-introduced myself socially to the outside world, and although I fish mainly with blokes from work, it really is a step in the right direction.
The plan was to meet up bankside at Friezeland Lakes for our first competition at 07.00 and we all duly arrived somewhere between 07.00 and 07.30, with myself being the last to arrive. The fishery does not allow keep nets and so we agreed on a point system based on number of fish caught rather than weight and it went as follows:
1st Place - 50pts
2nd Place - 40pts
3rd Place - 30pts
4th Place - 20pts
Fish of the Day - Biggest fish caught - Bonus 25pts
The weather was warmish but cloudy and I was starting to regret wearing shorts as the sun struggled to clear the clouds, I also regretted the shorts later on in the day but I will explain when I get to that point. At first we were all catching fairly regularly and the first two hours went past very quickly with Richard, Damian, Luke and myself all around the 15 fish mark. It didn't matter how heavy the fish was, it was down to the number of fish caught, so while Richard fished on the top with dog biscuit, Damian fished on top with bread and Luke switched between his feeder rod and pole, I concentrated on the area just in front of the reeds on a place where the lake bed dropped from a foot to about three feet. I was hitting small perch and roach who were taking the chopped luncheon meat hook-bait and maggot freebies I was feeding into the swim to encourage the fish into the swim.
I had Luke's lad Rhys (the 8 year old) in the peg next to me and he was getting frustrated that he wasn't catching, in fact the others had also slowed down a bit, but I was still going strong and catching with every cast. Rhys decided that he would come down and keep my company and stood next to me asking what I was doing. I told him that I had fed one part of the swim up while I fished the other, something he should try doing but the next thing I knew he had appeared at my side with his rod and plopped his float right in the swim I had been feeding up. He caught straight away, in fact he got four in quick succession and I had just been mugged off by a minor. After some moaning from me he moved back to his own peg, but not before he had negotiated taking some of my luncheon meat, a few hooks and some groundbait. The little con merchant stitched me up like a kipper because I still have no idea what I got from the deal.
There then followed a period of calm when it seemed like no-one was catching anywhere but there was still a bit of life in the swim and my luncheon meat was proving to be a very popular bait. I kept up a steady pace of catching from the margins, no huge fish though, nothing over 2 or 3 ounces, but every so often I would hook into something decent and without fail as soon as I did you could guarantee that Rhys would decide that was the perfect time to ask for help with his disgorger, come down for a chat or come and ask for some more meat to use as bait. He did this four times and on each occasion I lost the hooked fish. To say I wasn't too happy at losing the fish would be something of an understatement but you can't be angry with a youngster just wanting to have a chat or help, but the poor child did look a little shocked when I informed him that if it happened again he was going in the lake. From further down the bank I could hear laughter coming from the direction of Damian and Luke who had been watching the events at my peg. I didn't want Rhys to feel as if I was angry with him, because I wasn't at all, and I remembered how my Dad had made me feel when I was young so we made a deal with each other, that if my rod was in the water he would wait until it was out before bringing the Rhys jinx to my peg.
The afternoon drew on and Damian's and Luke's swims were not as active as they had been earlier in the day and Luke had changed tactics and was fishing with his pole now, but Damian was sticking with his approach he had started the day with, meanwhile further down the bank Richard had hardly moved from his swim and was just happily fishing away. Richard is a serious carp fisherman with all the associated gear required for catching these huge lumps, and I shudder to think how much his gear is worth, but there was an awful lot of it with padded seats, huge landing nets, several different types of rod etc. This is what I like about fishing though, the fish don't care about the manufacturers name of your rod, how much it cost or how much gear you have got. You can draw a blank with all of the expensive stuff just as easily as you can with the old and battered kit that some have.
It was around now that I experienced just about the worst pain I have ever suffered in my life, the sort of pain that temporarily disables the power of speech and you just sit there with a wide open mouth emitting a scream so highly pitched that it can't be heard by human ears. I had reeled my line in to swap the bait and got myself a little tangled up so pulled off some line from the reel to enable me to sort out the tangle in the line. However this caused the line at the hook end to drop and rest on the floor between my feet. I got myself sorted and started to wind in the line so I could put a fresh maggot on the hook and it was then that the hook made first contact with my knackers. Instead of stopping and calmly unhooking myself I panicked a little and stupidly lifted the rod and line which made the hook dig deeper through my shorts and undercrackers and further into my left bollock (bollocks = nuts for our American friends). I sat there in agony unable to think straight or know what to do next, I really was paralysed with the pain until my sense returned and I lowered the rod which took some not all of the pain away, and I was able to unhook myself. It was a few hours before the soreness eased and the nauseous feeling left me.
By now Damian was getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of activity in his swim and decided to call it a day. He had bagged about 15 carp in the first few hours but then had landed just four fish over the course of the next 6 hours. This meant that the contest was done for the day and any fish caught now would not count to the total and would just be pleasure angling. However, Damian always leaves his rods until the very last minute while he packs everything away so his rods were still active. Luke decided to try his luck in Damian's swim and cast his pole out close to where Damian had been feeding the swim up. Just seconds before Damian's rods came out Luke hooked and was fighting his fish as Damian bid us all goodbye and left in his van. I doubt whether he had made the gates to the lake when Luke managed to land his fish which turned out to be a valuable fish as well and won him the bonus 25pts being 8lbs 14oz in weight. Because it had been hooked while Damian's rod was still in the water it was a valid catch.
With the contest over we had a quick tally up and the result ended:
Me - 54 fish - 50pts
Richard - 51 fish - 40pts
Luke - 28 fish - 30pts plus 25pts for Fish of the Day
Damian - 19 fish - 20pts
I had won....I had won the first fishing contest I had ever been in and my confidence went through the roof. Okay so Luke had more points, but I had caught the most fish. I was buzzing and after the disaster of a few weeks earlier at West Smethwick Park and along the canal, it was the boost my confidence needed. I knew then that I could fish, that I had proved that I wasn't useless as my Dad had made out all those years before. In the grand scheme of things the win meant nothing really, the important thing for me was that I had done something with my Bank Holiday Monday, I had ventured off the sofa and been out with good mates and had a great time, even though my left knacker was still a tad sore. I had actually done something for myself on a Bank Holiday and that was a huge thing for me. Usually I would have got up stupidly early, pottered about the house for a few hours before getting onto the sofa and sleeping all day, went to the supermarket just before it closed and wasted the day by hiding myself away in the house. I started to believe in myself as well. It was a good day......
There are a few lads at work who are keen anglers, Luke, Damian and Richard, and we decided to start our own little fishing club and visit different fisheries around the UK, using our company vans to transport us and our gear around them. We decided that our first club get together would take place on the last Bank Holiday (25th May) at Friezeland Pool in Bosworth, Leicestershire, the place where Luke had taken me on that first adventure two Sunday's previously. To say I was a little nervous after the previous weekends disaster was putting it mildly; I had been plagued by self doubt all week and even started to think that by telling people that I hadn't wasted the time spent sitting on the bank because I had used the time practice my casting and learned a valuable lesson about preparation of tactics and the swim was just my way of trying cover up the failure and put on this brave face . I think this may have been more for my own benefit rather than everyone else as I recognised the old anxieties returning about being useless.
Around half of those people who experience depression will also experience anxieties of one sort or another and taking steps to manage these feelings can help give you the mental space to begin to deal with your depression. Talking about what is making you anxious, as well as a healthy diet and exercising, will all help you to control your anxiety but this is where I had backed myself into a corner because over the last few years I had become a social recluse. I had cut myself off from friends and locked myself away in my own little world where I knew that I wasn't going to be hurt by anyone. By going fishing I have re-introduced myself socially to the outside world, and although I fish mainly with blokes from work, it really is a step in the right direction.
The plan was to meet up bankside at Friezeland Lakes for our first competition at 07.00 and we all duly arrived somewhere between 07.00 and 07.30, with myself being the last to arrive. The fishery does not allow keep nets and so we agreed on a point system based on number of fish caught rather than weight and it went as follows:
1st Place - 50pts
2nd Place - 40pts
3rd Place - 30pts
4th Place - 20pts
Fish of the Day - Biggest fish caught - Bonus 25pts
The weather was warmish but cloudy and I was starting to regret wearing shorts as the sun struggled to clear the clouds, I also regretted the shorts later on in the day but I will explain when I get to that point. At first we were all catching fairly regularly and the first two hours went past very quickly with Richard, Damian, Luke and myself all around the 15 fish mark. It didn't matter how heavy the fish was, it was down to the number of fish caught, so while Richard fished on the top with dog biscuit, Damian fished on top with bread and Luke switched between his feeder rod and pole, I concentrated on the area just in front of the reeds on a place where the lake bed dropped from a foot to about three feet. I was hitting small perch and roach who were taking the chopped luncheon meat hook-bait and maggot freebies I was feeding into the swim to encourage the fish into the swim.
I had Luke's lad Rhys (the 8 year old) in the peg next to me and he was getting frustrated that he wasn't catching, in fact the others had also slowed down a bit, but I was still going strong and catching with every cast. Rhys decided that he would come down and keep my company and stood next to me asking what I was doing. I told him that I had fed one part of the swim up while I fished the other, something he should try doing but the next thing I knew he had appeared at my side with his rod and plopped his float right in the swim I had been feeding up. He caught straight away, in fact he got four in quick succession and I had just been mugged off by a minor. After some moaning from me he moved back to his own peg, but not before he had negotiated taking some of my luncheon meat, a few hooks and some groundbait. The little con merchant stitched me up like a kipper because I still have no idea what I got from the deal.
There then followed a period of calm when it seemed like no-one was catching anywhere but there was still a bit of life in the swim and my luncheon meat was proving to be a very popular bait. I kept up a steady pace of catching from the margins, no huge fish though, nothing over 2 or 3 ounces, but every so often I would hook into something decent and without fail as soon as I did you could guarantee that Rhys would decide that was the perfect time to ask for help with his disgorger, come down for a chat or come and ask for some more meat to use as bait. He did this four times and on each occasion I lost the hooked fish. To say I wasn't too happy at losing the fish would be something of an understatement but you can't be angry with a youngster just wanting to have a chat or help, but the poor child did look a little shocked when I informed him that if it happened again he was going in the lake. From further down the bank I could hear laughter coming from the direction of Damian and Luke who had been watching the events at my peg. I didn't want Rhys to feel as if I was angry with him, because I wasn't at all, and I remembered how my Dad had made me feel when I was young so we made a deal with each other, that if my rod was in the water he would wait until it was out before bringing the Rhys jinx to my peg.
The afternoon drew on and Damian's and Luke's swims were not as active as they had been earlier in the day and Luke had changed tactics and was fishing with his pole now, but Damian was sticking with his approach he had started the day with, meanwhile further down the bank Richard had hardly moved from his swim and was just happily fishing away. Richard is a serious carp fisherman with all the associated gear required for catching these huge lumps, and I shudder to think how much his gear is worth, but there was an awful lot of it with padded seats, huge landing nets, several different types of rod etc. This is what I like about fishing though, the fish don't care about the manufacturers name of your rod, how much it cost or how much gear you have got. You can draw a blank with all of the expensive stuff just as easily as you can with the old and battered kit that some have.
It was around now that I experienced just about the worst pain I have ever suffered in my life, the sort of pain that temporarily disables the power of speech and you just sit there with a wide open mouth emitting a scream so highly pitched that it can't be heard by human ears. I had reeled my line in to swap the bait and got myself a little tangled up so pulled off some line from the reel to enable me to sort out the tangle in the line. However this caused the line at the hook end to drop and rest on the floor between my feet. I got myself sorted and started to wind in the line so I could put a fresh maggot on the hook and it was then that the hook made first contact with my knackers. Instead of stopping and calmly unhooking myself I panicked a little and stupidly lifted the rod and line which made the hook dig deeper through my shorts and undercrackers and further into my left bollock (bollocks = nuts for our American friends). I sat there in agony unable to think straight or know what to do next, I really was paralysed with the pain until my sense returned and I lowered the rod which took some not all of the pain away, and I was able to unhook myself. It was a few hours before the soreness eased and the nauseous feeling left me.
By now Damian was getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of activity in his swim and decided to call it a day. He had bagged about 15 carp in the first few hours but then had landed just four fish over the course of the next 6 hours. This meant that the contest was done for the day and any fish caught now would not count to the total and would just be pleasure angling. However, Damian always leaves his rods until the very last minute while he packs everything away so his rods were still active. Luke decided to try his luck in Damian's swim and cast his pole out close to where Damian had been feeding the swim up. Just seconds before Damian's rods came out Luke hooked and was fighting his fish as Damian bid us all goodbye and left in his van. I doubt whether he had made the gates to the lake when Luke managed to land his fish which turned out to be a valuable fish as well and won him the bonus 25pts being 8lbs 14oz in weight. Because it had been hooked while Damian's rod was still in the water it was a valid catch.
With the contest over we had a quick tally up and the result ended:
Me - 54 fish - 50pts
Richard - 51 fish - 40pts
Luke - 28 fish - 30pts plus 25pts for Fish of the Day
Damian - 19 fish - 20pts
I had won....I had won the first fishing contest I had ever been in and my confidence went through the roof. Okay so Luke had more points, but I had caught the most fish. I was buzzing and after the disaster of a few weeks earlier at West Smethwick Park and along the canal, it was the boost my confidence needed. I knew then that I could fish, that I had proved that I wasn't useless as my Dad had made out all those years before. In the grand scheme of things the win meant nothing really, the important thing for me was that I had done something with my Bank Holiday Monday, I had ventured off the sofa and been out with good mates and had a great time, even though my left knacker was still a tad sore. I had actually done something for myself on a Bank Holiday and that was a huge thing for me. Usually I would have got up stupidly early, pottered about the house for a few hours before getting onto the sofa and sleeping all day, went to the supermarket just before it closed and wasted the day by hiding myself away in the house. I started to believe in myself as well. It was a good day......
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