ESP when fishing

[Guest Steve Burke]

The topic I started entitled "It feels weird" got me thinking about weird things that have happened to me when fishing. I'm thinking in this context about premonitions etc.

 

One I recall vividly was when fishing for perch with my old mate Nigel Witham. The conditions couldn't have been worse - a cold, sunny December day. We knew we had little chance until dusk, but then you can't catch sitting indoors.

 

Suddenly, I came out of my daydream. The hairs on the back of my neck started tickling. "Nigel," I said, "I'm about to get a run". Nigel's curt reply was something along the lines of don't talk rubbish, there's absolutely no chance for ages, get back to your dreamworld!

 

No sooner than he'd finished speaking than the buzzer went! The only problem is it wasn't mine, it was his! Nigel's bait was just a few feet from mine, and the jammy git had done it again! The perch turned out to be our first 3 pounder.

 

This is not the only time this has happened to me. Unfortunately, it's very rare, and I usually have to work for my fish. Of course, it could be down to accumulated experience, although this happened 20 years ago. It could have been that I subconsciously noticed a slight change in conditions.

 

What do you lot think, and has anything similar happened to you?

 

------------------

Wingham Fisheries

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/fisheries/wingham.htm

[Guest Elton]

I remember a certain Steve Burke telling me that I almost definitely wouldn't catch in these conditions, seconds before I hooked into the first Wingham fish that I managed to get on the bank

 

Elton

 

------------------

Anglers' Net

Keeping It Virtual...

[Guest Steve Burke]

What do I know!

 

------------------

Wingham Fisheries

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/fisheries/wingham.htm

[Guest jonn]

yer,

i always seem to get runs just as i put the kettle on, or clean my hands to eat something, or get up and wonder round the lake/river and me mate goes and catches on my rod, or just as I've finished drying off the landing net, or just as it starts to rain, or............etc.etc.etc.

 

thats not weird though-it's sods law!

[Guest Martin Salisbury]

When i was little I used to do a paperround then go and spend the morning watching others fish on a local pond throughout the summer hols etc.

 

I noticed that people always usewd to catch at 9.50am and so always said even if they were having a lean spell don't worry you'll catch at ten to ten and hey presto, they did!

 

Our current one is that if things are 'slow' you have to phone the fish on your mobile and ask them to obliging; what's spooky is that this often works. In fact, it works too often to be a coincidence, weird.

 

Martin

[Guest Newt]

Originally posted by Martin Salisbury:

Our current one is that if things are 'slow' you have to phone the fish on your mobile and ask them to obliging; what's spooky is that this often works.  In fact, it works too often to be a coincidence, weird.

 

Well Martin - are you going to share the proper phone number or just keep us in suspense?

[Guest Vagabond]

Steve is quite right - it is uncanny how one can sometimes sense a fish about to take a bait, and as he says, it is very likely a subconscious awareness of an improvement in conditions - a cloud over the sun, the sun peeping through after a cloud, slight breeze springing up, or dying down, about time the fish have homed into your groundbait etc etc.

 

What is not just uncanny, but downright sinister, is the number of times you get a fierce pull (and miss it!) the instant you are distracted by (say) a passing kingfisher. You follow it with your eyes, and wallop! the rodtip is wrenched round. Often it is the only bite of the session, and it happens when coarse fishing, (and substitute gannet for kingfisher) when wreck fishing, skate fishing, and also when retrieving a fly or lure. Far too often to be coincidence, and in case you're wondering, yes I do concentrate about 98% of the time.

 

Consider carp on floaters - I could buy a theory that says they watch you and snatch the bait when you look away (compare feeding wild birds around your swim - robins pick up crumbs as soon as your eye is off them). That won't wash for skate at 330 ft depth though! So do FISH have ESP ?? I think we should be told.....

 

------------------

Vagabond

[Guest martin@tryangling]

Now I know this will attract some derision but here goes.

All too often as mentioned above the fish seem to bite when the angler is distracted by doing something else. You all know what I mean, you have stared at the float for hours, with the rod in your hand, you look away for a second at some disturbance or other and when you look back the float is gone or, more often than not, just comming back up. It happens too often to be a mere coincidence.

When younger and travelling on the bus to school we used to stare at the back of people's heads and most times these people would turn round. If these people, living as they did in a civillised environment, were able to sense our cocentration on the backs of their necks then why should a fish not be able to sense the same thing.

 

Next time you end up with a cup of coffee in your lap having missed a bite think about the possibility.

 

I offer no solution to this phenomena but just wish to point out the possibility of it's existance.

[Guest poledark]

It's all to do with patience(I blame her for everything) Wild creatures have an inbuilt clock that makes them just a few seconds more patient than us humans. So just as you think you are not going to get a bite the fish decides it is now safe to eat your bait.

 

It is the same as when shooting, just as you step out of the hide a flock of pigeons fly past.

 

Happens all the time.

This clock works no matter how long you wait,the fish wait 1 second longer.

 

If you believe that then you will believe anything!

 

poledark

[Guest Martin Salisbury]

Sorry Newt the numbers ex-directory!

 

(ex-directory means it's not in the phone book if you don't understand the above in USA!)