I’m a deeply amateur fisherman; given that I don’t even eat fish, my fishing is more like the nastier blood sports in its complete lack of utility. I’ve spend 2 days fishing on Loch Awe over the August bank holiday for the last 3 years, and have caught one perch and one small trout. In my defence, that’s nearly 50% of the entire catch of the party of us who’ve been doing this.
We sit in a boat with about 5 people in it, with varying degrees of amateur casting from 3 rods going on. When I’m not doing any casting I can never really relax and get drunktake in the marvellous scenary and tranquility of the Loch as I’m terrified that, like Ben Stiller in There’s Something About Mary, I’ll get hooked by one of my friends as we make some cack-handed attempt to do a champion fish catching cast. Luckily, all we have to show for this fear was a perceived few near misses, when someone felt the whush of spiky metal through the air.
Occasionally, we get a snag, which initially feels like a catch, and excitment miounts, and the boartd rocks dangerously from side to side. usually, it’s just a log on the bottom of the bed of the loch. We are all very relaxed as we just keep on tugging until it comes free.
No more. In future, we will row over to the end of the line and calmly retrieve the spinner and weight, because we really, really, really don’t want this to happen.