Anyone else had a disaster of an angling trip ? I have had some great ones, but one I had to france in 2000 was a catastrophy. Sounded great, big carp and the lake to our selves for the week. All the criteria were there.

a) a group you don't know apart from the friend who is a mutual friend.

you arrive to discover that there has been no swim draw and those that arrived a couple of hours before are all set up at one end of the lake.

c) the local river is in flood and so is one third of the lake in terms of swims being under water

d) the preordered bait is not there and no ETA is available

e) The flood means the kitchen and club house are underwater

f) The toilets don't work due to flood and neither does the shower.

g) The very fastest of french trains zip though 30 yards from lake

h) The very loud and long diesel trains use that line over night.

i) The people who got there first caught lots of carp all week between 19 and 39 pound, and lovely fish they were.

j) The five of us at the other, imposed end, of the lake did not even get a line bite in 7 days.

k) The water level dropped mid week, I moved swims, following day awoke to see my video camera bag bobbing gently past my bed chair. Moved back to one of the carp desert swims.

l) Could not seem to get the phrase "swim rotation" translated into a language the occupiers of the other end of the lake understood.

It would be nice to know I am not alone in an experience such as this.

Cheers

The moral of this story. Get there earlier.
No sorry matey, I really feel for you, makes you think why do I bother, what a rotten time.

You mean APART from breaking both arms within three months, on seperate fishing trips?

Nah, mate - not really.

Terry

You weren't at Abbey Mal were you?

Regularly;
I live not far from Child Beale park, and it has a lump of a lake, and i have never caught a thing out of it. Should i perservere????

Some anglers break their arms when they try and kid us that their fish are
*--------O--------*, way beyond their natural stretch, rather than
*--O--* !

[ 26. April 2004, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

The petrol outboard came off the back of the dinghy once.

We were pushing it off a beachy type bit of bank, on the waveney near fritton woods and the prop dug in the gravel and wrenched it off the back, sank very quickly

We got it back with the anchor rope but would it start :confused: would it heck

Took about 7 hours to row back to beccles, most of it in the dark.

we got home about 3am

I'll never forget a pikefishing trip to the Dorset Stour, many years ago, on the last weekend of the season. As it was to be the last trip for a while, my preparation was immaculate. I had sharpened all of the hooks on my lures, bought at least three types of deadbait, polished and lubricated my reels, and I was determined to be on the bank at dawn: nothing was to be left to chance. On the day, I woke at 4 a.m., and drove the thirty miles or so, to the river. It took less time than usual, so it was still pitch-black when I got there. I parked the car in my usual spot, a field and a high hedge away from the river. I decided to wait until there was a hint of light before setting off to the bank, so I switched on the radio... and fell asleep for nearly three hours! To make matters worse, I could see, when I woke up, that the field that separated the car parking place from the river was completely flooded, the river having burst its banks. I decided to head for the famous Throop fisheries instead, forgetting that I had carefully taken out all of my non-piking gear from the kit I was carrying. The Stour at Throop was racing along: I stopped at a corner shop and bought a few things to try as bait. I ended up casting out luncheonmeat on a small treble-hook, but my bored-bullet weight wouldn't hold bottom, so I was trundling it through the swim at about 20mph. The barbel I was hoping to catch probably didn't have time to have a good look at my bait in the time it flashed by their noses. In the end, I'd paid for what was, in those days, a very expensive day-ticket, and been hopelessly ill-equipped for the fishery. Several pounds (in weight and money) of deadbaits had thawed out, left in a car that became surprisingly warm, and leaked fish-blood all over the back seat of the car. The car still smelled of that day, when it was sold.

Even a blank is part of the learning curve, but there are blanks and here are blanks!

I am not keen on pike matches, not least because I don't believe that the pike is a suitable species. Nor do I believe that winning a pike match has that much to do with skill, more a case of complete luck of the draw.

As a favour to a friend I agree to fish for my local HM Prison staff team, and that was a culture shock for a kick off. A pongo friend of mine refered to them as the woodentops! Anyway, thats as maybe. But in some cases I think he was right .

Early start, had to leave Lowestoft and be at Whitemoor Prison for breakfast and the draw at 7.00. Great breakfast! Met the prison riot squad. These guys sat in the canteen in full body armour, Land Rover parked outside, with the motor running for heavens sakes. Ready to go at the drop of a hat, makes you wonder who really is the prisoner. Breakfast over and draw done, off we went to the pegs, disaster, total disaster. Whoever organised this thing? We fished a pegged length, in teams of two. The pegs being ten yards apart, meaning that each peg potentially had four rods on it. Hour and a half's drive just for this. Plus we were pegged right next to a bush that limited us even further. It was abundantly clear, right from the start, that the end peg by the bridge would win, and so it did. We could only really cast out at about 45 degrees to the bank, those guys could cast from nil to 100 yards along the bank, with the added draw of the bridge which pike seem to like. Our peg was a nice steep one, with a flooded plateau at the bottom of it. Thank God for Skeetex! I spent all day with my feet in 9 inches of icy water. The fellows to one side of us had the conversational skills of the long dead, on the other side of the bush two blokes did nothing but complain and moan for England. My mate only had ordinary wellies and he was very, very cold indeed. No snow, but icy rain and hail flurries with typical lazy Fenland wind that made no detours, just cut straight through my mates inadequate foul weather gear. It was not a good day, and I was genuinly concerned for his well being but he insisted on carrying on, representing his club, even though the chance of a take was nil. End of a pointless match and I got him into the car, engine on to warm him up as I packed our gear away. Back to the prison for tea, that was a heartless affair! Seemed that the majority were less than impressed with the pegging and organisation. By the time we had got back to Norwich we were laughing about it all, by the time we got back to Lowestoft I think we actually believed that we had had a good day!! But the reality was that it was an really unforgetable days fishing, for all the wrong reasons.

I remember a match a few years ago at evesbatch top pool.My club new barley a.c. had a new member that i had never met before.He was one of these types that have been everywhere done everything was the worlds best fisherman and was going to wipe the floor with us.we started fishing and i could hear him telling our secretary in the next peg to him that he was that good he would not bother to land the carp he was about to catch he did`nt need a landing net he would lift the fish out under the gills.Anyway after about ten minutes or so he hit a reasonable sized carp played it into the margin bent down to lift it out and fell arse over tip straight into the pool.If you don`t know the top pool at evesbatch unlike the bottom ones it is very deep in the margins.For a few seconds all we could see was his wide brimmed hat floating on the surface then up he popped and scrambled up the bank.Of course there was no ribbing our secretary Tony shouted how deep is it mate save me plumbing it.All you could hear was laughter all around the pool.He never said another word for the rest of the match and caught bugga all!In the the pub after the match he sat quietly in a pair of borrowed shorts and vest brilliant.He`s is still in our club still catches bugga all and we will never let him forget it will we `Dave (the jap) hughes`