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Friday Funny... 10 Things That Scare You On The Bank!
2.) Tangles Winding in after bite time to find your rig in a birdsnest style mess which has rendered it usless! The prospect of this makes wince and squint whilst I bravely turn the real handle and peer at the surface. This fear is made even more real when you’ve had fish after fish boshing over your embarrassment of a rig.
3.) Unidentified Noises We all know those bloodcurling screams, howls and growls that pierce through the silence of night and make you feel like you’ve bivvyed up in a lion’s enclosure at the zoo. There’s nothing that makes my heart beat faster, make me run for the bivvy light or make me want to jump into the angler next doors sleeping bag and cuddle like one of those crazy noises that always seem to be right next to your bivvy!
4.) Haunted Tales Most lakes I’ve fished have some sort of ghostly tale attached to them. Usually this scare monger is passed onto you by the regulars or more senior ticket holders. It’s often dismissed as complete rubbish at first but on a sleepless night when your imagination is running overboard the sight of the bushes in the “haunted peg “ you are in start rustling make you hide under the sleeping bag or zip down the bivvy door in fear.
5.) Crack Offs Snap, that gunshot style sound makes me dive for cover as if I’m in the middle of a war zone. I’ve seen leads rigs fly through bivvys on opposite sides of a lake and I certainly don’t want any part of my body in the way of that especially when it’s the bloke opposite who is fishing at 200 yards who’s cracked off. Call me a soft lad if you like but I’d rather run for cover then have a 4oz tournament lead plugged into my forehead thank you very much! Bang goes the modelling career.
6.) Wildlife Crazy aggressive foxes, mutant badgers, supersize grass snakes and even startled deer, you are never too far away from these unpredictable and wild creatures. There always a good old carpers tale of how some poor lad has experienced the darker side of nature whilst on the bank. These tales flood through your head when you cross paths with a wild visitor during you session.
7.) Running Out Of Supplies Its 3am and you’ve been clearing the lake of bream. You reach for a tea bag or coffee in my case and you are met with an empty container. I’d prey it’s a nightmare as the reality is enough to make a grown hardened carper cry. Things are magnified when you realise that its day 2 of a week long session and there’s no shops for miles and no one else on the lake. Carping survival is all dependant on supplies, Bear Grylls would back me up on that.
8.) Weather Thunder, lighting and savage winds can all make you feel like you want to head for the car home. I remember night literally holding my bivvy to the ground for hours as the wind does its best to rid me of £500 worth of Trakkers finest Armo. That sight of a fork of lightening landing just over the trees on the far bank and followed closely by thunder makes your heart pound with fear. As if God has ordered one extra crispy fried carper and you’re the chosen one!
9.) The Missus Finding Out How You Spend on Fishing Tackle Above all else this is the scariest of all prospects. The mission of hiding bank statements, credit card bills, shredding all reciept and taking a few zeros off the price that you quote her are all examples of the lengths us carpers go to hide the extent of our addiction. The stark financial truth coming out to both yourself and the missus is so frightening I think I’d rather chop my own arm off with my toddler’s safety scissors. The alternatives are divorce, a life looking after kids instead of carping and probably death.
10.) Boat Battles Trying to tame a beast which is fighting for its life in 1000ft of water in the pitch black darkness is enough to make even the most seasoned of boat battling carpers eyes fill up and lips quiver with pure fear. Couple this with the hurricane winds and waves crashing over your little rubber dingy of a boat with only a extra small life jacket to save you and you would be forgiven for returning to shore and having to change your boxers straight away. Battling for a boat in the day maybe even worse, the fear of being shredded by other carpers after you have provided the whole of the lake a feature lengthen production of how to have a shocker and generally be a carping noddy.