Applied Stupidity

Up bright and early to a crisp frosty morning, intent on a spot of pike fishing. This was my first mistake that saw me look like I was practising for my GCSE in Applied Stupidity. After breakfast I loaded up the car and the phone alarm went off to remind me of an appointment.  I could have had another couple of hours in bed. Eventually to got to the river and setup. The first bait, a lamprey section,  was tossed in upstream. As I setup the second rod the float disappeared and I struck. What I hadn't noticed was that the line had wrapped around the end of a branch. After a bit of piddling about and nearly ending up in the river when I attempted to step on a bit of bank that wasn't there I got it free, but the fish had gone. Just after I put some water on to boil I got another run. Switching the action cam on as I made my way to the rod. After a brief bit of acrobatics at the net a jack of 5-lb was landed. As I made my way back to the unhooking mat, as the pot I was landing the fish was rather small and not suitable of wrestling a jack, I kicked the stove over. Once returned I reviewed the footage only to find I'd not pressed the record button.

I boiled some more water and had my cuppa before moving swims. I then moved again after an hour. This swim was equally unproductive, but I did have a spot of lunch after another calamity. Top tip - don't step over an opened pot noodle with muddy boots. The mud that falls off the boot does not enhance the flavour in any way. By now there was a fair bit of heat in the sun and I'd removed a couple of layers. I spent an hour or so throwing various lures about which resulted in a follow from one very small jack not much bigger than the 10" lure. I moved back to the first swim for the remainder of the day where I was visited by a local otter which I managed to get a photo of. Can you see it? As I was having a natter with another angler the downstream float disappeared. This time I remembered to press record on the cam, only I didn't hold it long enough and only got a still of a couple of out of focus fingers. Another jack of similar size to a roach. A stuttering run an the lamprey resulted in nothing. By now the sun had dropped behind the trees and layers were been put back on. Within half an hour I had the big coat back on. I stayed on to nearly dark and was only half way back to the car when I realised I'd left the bait bag behind.

Back at the car panic started to set in as the car key couldn't be found. I rifled through the pockets several times. Emptied the tackle bag. Checked the doors to see if I'd left it in the car. After a bit of a pause and thought I remembered the "secret pocket" in the coat intended for keys as it has a little clip in it to attach them to. I don't need Google maps to get me home, but it is useful for warning about traffic jams and accidents. This proved useful as my thirty minute journey started to increase to forty minutes and beyond I was able to avoid the worst of it. It transpired that a double decker had attempted to go under a low bridge and failed. This is not the first time this has happened with this bridge. In fact one driver managed it twice.