Trying new things, for me, is a mixture of excitement and nervousness. I was filled to the brim with both when R and I joined a new club. We would have to try some new techniques and strategies. Each and every one were completely foreign to me while he had a far better knowledge than I did. But in our typical fashion, he wont let me be complacent in any way and helps me learn constantly.
I now had to learn how to spomb and how to cast at distance. This was quite nerve wracking, but with R’s encouragement I was prepared to try and learn.
We got to the lake before the birds had even decided to wake up, having left home the second curfew was over. We set up our rods in the dark and even though I am not a morning person, I was still excited to be out and on the bank.
We unfortunately didn’t have the best of starts. The first rod went in flawlessly, the second, not so much…
The first cast, snapped off. Second Cast, snapped off. Third cast, wind blown line, into a tree, and, you guessed it, snapped off. Finally the second rod was in. Now we had to spomb the area. At 16 wraps we spombed happily. Perhaps the power of 3 was done.
We now had to wrap up the distance rods. 3 rods out at 30 wraps. We planned to spomb the area first. The first cast out with the spod rod, we suffered with an unbelievable case of wind knots. 7 to be exact. We then decided to rather cast the lines in as they were clipped up and ready, and spomb after. The first of the 3 went in. We managed to spomb a few out and tried the second distance rod. As old Murphy would have it, we managed a few wind knots in that one too. And the third distance rod had all the mono pop off the spool mid cast. Then the spomb snapped off.
At this point we were trying to work out what juju we had. It was a complete comedy of errors. We eventually managed to get all six rods in the water. Just as we were finally going to sit down, one of the rods tear off. I landed a beautiful disk shaped small, and a short while later R landed a pretty common, with a third later in the day.
At the end of the day we managed 3 fish. Even though it was the most challenging day I have ever had on the bank, I still at least landed 1 fish at a new venue, managed to throw out a spomb and also managed to cast to 23 wraps on my 8ft rods. R and I learnt the new meaning of patience and a new respect for the anglers that fish like this constantly. We wont be deterred. We will be back and will try again.
Carpy Dreams 