What scares you when night fishing?

[Now there's a right un.]

I think the only thing that frightens me when night fishing is losing my balance and plunging headlong into the water.

 

Rats only bother me insofar as they have a tendancy to try to steal my baits.

 

Snakes, well they stink when you pick them up and it is hard to wash off the smell.

 

I have heard a rumour, however, that the Rabbit from the Monty Python Holy Grail film prowls my area...

[Dales]

Snakes, well they stink when you pick them up and it is hard to wash off the smell.

 

Why pick them up then

[John S]

I have heard a rumour, however, that the Rabbit from the Monty Python Holy Grail film prowls my area...

 

That'll be the 'ickle bunny-wunny that scared the poopoo out of our esteemed (and still shaking) site owner

[Now there's a right un.]

That'll be the 'ickle bunny-wunny that scared the poopoo out of our esteemed (and still shaking) site owner

 

 

 

Nice.

[Newt]

I can't say for sure (wasn't there) but I have heard the poor bunny needed months of therapy to get over its fright after the very loud scream followed by an equally loud moan.

 

He (our gracious host) was heard to say he mistook the bunny for a maddened bull.

[Gazza78]

Depends on whether a car is present or not! Rain and drunkards can prove a pain...

[Ronnie Clay]

yes november the n.e.c. got mine have you?????? :mad: :mad:

[Ronnie Clay]

Depends on whether a car is present or not! Rain and drunkards can prove a pain...

 

 

I once had a run-in with a 6 inch long centipede in my tent, shiny brown with yellow legs. A bite from one of these horrors is utterley terrible. Grown men have killed themselves to be free of the pain!

[Steve Walker]

When we were boys, perhaps nine or ten years old, my friend and I set out on our bikes one summer evening after school to reconnoitre a fishing pond we had heard about. We cycled through the new houses and into the country park. The path was hard packed sandy gravel, and we rode quickly through grazing land and down over the dirty old river - across the bridge where later that summer I would find out what happens if you put the front wheel of a bicycle into a pothole at speed, and where a schoolmate would find out why throwing stones at young anglers who carry catapults is inadvisable.

 

Over the bridge, the footpath followed the meandering of the river, the cloying pong of Himalayan balsam mixing with the hint of detergent from the water. The river valley park was a relatively small patch of open countryside hemmed in by busy roads, housing and and industry, but in the early evening it was quiet and still and as we cycled on I started to feel a little uncomfortable. We reached the woods in which the pond lay, dismounted and heaved our bikes over the stile and began to walk uphill through the woods, wheeling our bikes, and the feeling of apprehension grew. I don't remember any particular source for the anxiety, no imagined bogeyman or specific fear, only perhaps that the quiet was disturbing.

 

Whatever it was, I had not realised that I was not the only one feeling it. We were almost at the water when my friend turned to me and, without exchanging a word, we turned tail and ran, dragging our bikes over the stile, mounting them and pedalling like fury until we were well clear of the place. We never could explain to ourselves or each other what had caused that disquiet and subsequent panic, only that whatever it was had scared the bejeezus out of us. I think perhaps we were subconsciously picking up cues from each other, like nervous pack animals starting at nothing. We fished there many times afterwards, and never had that same feeling there again.

 

I was reminded of this incident one evening a couple of weeks ago. My club has a nice little section of the Thames on its books, actually a backwater from the main stream. It's very lightly fished, and though I have seen evidence of the presence of other anglers, I've never seen another soul actually fishing it. One of my favourite swims sits on a bend, where the river drops away to a good depth under a tangle of overhanging trees. At this time of year, getting to it means treading a path through shoulder high rushes which whisper and rustle in the wind, but allow you to sit in splendid isolation from the world. I had taken my stalking chair and I set it up to sit low amongst the rushes and plonked a swimfeeder into the bottom of the swim. The river was alive with small fish, dace and bleak, and my maggots were being busted on the drop. I switched to a large lobworm, and caught a succession of hand-sized perch, waiting for a big perch or chub to snaffle my bait (and secretly hoping that the club card's suggestion that the stretch held barbel was more than mere hearsay).

 

The evening wore on. A decent chub emerged lazily in front of me, took something out of the subsurface current, submerged again. A pair of swans and their cygnets made their way along the margins, probing the weed, a kingfisher flew through the swim, perching briefly in the tree opposite me, and all along that same apprehension I remembered from all those years ago steadily grew. I reasoned with myself. Told myself not to be stupid, that I am a rational, grown-up human being, that I don't believe in bogeymen and that the only creatures in the area that could harm me were the bulls a couple of fields away. And yet, I couldn't shake it, because this was not something coming from the rational, sensible, self-mastered part of the brain. This was coming from the part of the brain evolved long before that and devoted principally to the avoidance of being eaten, and this primitive, instinctive, reptilian thing had decided that I was In A Bad Place and was going to make every damned hair on my body stand up straight until I did something about it.

 

Perhaps it could hear the whispering reeds, perhaps it didn't like the idea of being hemmed into dark water by deep cover or perhaps the gathering gloom and the smell of Himalayan balsam had just randomly tripped some ancient circuit breaker like the quiet riverside woods of more than twenty five years previously. I don't know. I do know that I packed up hurriedly as the moon rose and the dark came down, pushed my way out through the rushes and reeds, rolled under the electric fence and trotted across the open field feeling like a man pursued - acutely aware that being spooked was absolutely ridiculous yet completely unable to shake it.

 

Back inside the car, gear thrown roughly into the boot, I slammed the door, locked it and laughed at myself. Ludicrous, scared of nothing, what a baby. I felt for my phone to call home and say that I wouldn't be long and couldn't find it, and the brief moment between losing the phone and finding it in an unexpected pocket was long enough to confirm one thing - if I had left it on the bank, wild horses would not have dragged me back to look for it!

 

It's a strange feeling. Even thinking about it now sends a shiver down my spine. I can understand how people come to ascribe that feeling to supernatural experiences, and I wonder if there is something tangible about the places people think to be haunted which triggers that instinctive lower brain function to whisper sharply of nameless fears and give the adrenocortical axis a good poke with a pointy stick. If I were a superstitious person, that's one bit of river I'd be avoiding for good.

[Tigger]

When we were boys, perhaps nine or ten years old, my friend and I set out on our bikes one summer evening after school to reconnoitre a fishing pond we had heard about. We cycled through the new houses and into the country park. The path was hard packed sandy gravel, and we rode quickly through grazing land and down over the dirty old river - across the bridge where later that summer I would find out what happens if you put the front wheel of a bicycle into a pothole at speed, and where a schoolmate would find out why throwing stones at young anglers who carry catapults is inadvisable.

 

Over the bridge, the footpath followed the meandering of the river, the cloying pong of Himalayan balsam mixing with the hint of detergent from the water. The river valley park was a relatively small patch of open countryside hemmed in by busy roads, housing and and industry, but in the early evening it was quiet and still and as we cycled on I started to feel a little uncomfortable. We reached the woods in which the pond lay, dismounted and heaved our bikes over the stile and began to walk uphill through the woods, wheeling our bikes, and the feeling of apprehension grew. I don't remember any particular source for the anxiety, no imagined bogeyman or specific fear, only perhaps that the quiet was disturbing.

 

Whatever it was, I had not realised that I was not the only one feeling it. We were almost at the water when my friend turned to me and, without exchanging a word, we turned tail and ran, dragging our bikes over the stile, mounting them and pedalling like fury until we were well clear of the place. We never could explain to ourselves or each other what had caused that disquiet and subsequent panic, only that whatever it was had scared the bejeezus out of us. I think perhaps we were subconsciously picking up cues from each other, like nervous pack animals starting at nothing. We fished there many times afterwards, and never had that same feeling there again.

 

I was reminded of this incident one evening a couple of weeks ago. My club has a nice little section of the Thames on its books, actually a backwater from the main stream. It's very lightly fished, and though I have seen evidence of the presence of other anglers, I've never seen another soul actually fishing it. One of my favourite swims sits on a bend, where the river drops away to a good depth under a tangle of overhanging trees. At this time of year, getting to it means treading a path through shoulder high rushes which whisper and rustle in the wind, but allow you to sit in splendid isolation from the world. I had taken my stalking chair and I set it up to sit low amongst the rushes and plonked a swimfeeder into the bottom of the swim. The river was alive with small fish, dace and bleak, and my maggots were being busted on the drop. I switched to a large lobworm, and caught a succession of hand-sized perch, waiting for a big perch or chub to snaffle my bait (and secretly hoping that the club card's suggestion that the stretch held barbel was more than mere hearsay).

 

The evening wore on. A decent chub emerged lazily in front of me, took something out of the subsurface current, submerged again. A pair of swans and their cygnets made their way along the margins, probing the weed, a kingfisher flew through the swim, perching briefly in the tree opposite me, and all along that same apprehension I remembered from all those years ago steadily grew. I reasoned with myself. Told myself not to be stupid, that I am a rational, grown-up human being, that I don't believe in bogeymen and that the only creatures in the area that could harm me were the bulls a couple of fields away. And yet, I couldn't shake it, because this was not something coming from the rational, sensible, self-mastered part of the brain. This was coming from the part of the brain evolved long before that and devoted principally to the avoidance of being eaten, and this primitive, instinctive, reptilian thing had decided that I was In A Bad Place and was going to make every damned hair on my body stand up straight until I did something about it.

 

Perhaps it could hear the whispering reeds, perhaps it didn't like the idea of being hemmed into dark water by deep cover or perhaps the gathering gloom and the smell of Himalayan balsam had just randomly tripped some ancient circuit breaker like the quiet riverside woods of more than twenty five years previously. I don't know. I do know that I packed up hurriedly as the moon rose and the dark came down, pushed my way out through the rushes and reeds, rolled under the electric fence and trotted across the open field feeling like a man pursued - acutely aware that being spooked was absolutely ridiculous yet completely unable to shake it.

 

Back inside the car, gear thrown roughly into the boot, I slammed the door, locked it and laughed at myself. Ludicrous, scared of nothing, what a baby. I felt for my phone to call home and say that I wouldn't be long and couldn't find it, and the brief moment between losing the phone and finding it in an unexpected pocket was long enough to confirm one thing - if I had left it on the bank, wild horses would not have dragged me back to look for it!

 

It's a strange feeling. Even thinking about it now sends a shiver down my spine. I can understand how people come to ascribe that feeling to supernatural experiences, and I wonder if there is something tangible about the places people think to be haunted which triggers that instinctive lower brain function to whisper sharply of nameless fears and give the adrenocortical axis a good poke with a pointy stick. If I were a superstitious person, that's one bit of river I'd be avoiding for good.

 

 

 

That was a brilliant post Steve ! I have had the very same thing happen to me and you described it just how it felt, great stuff