Friday Funny - The Blow Out

This entry was posted on 17th November, 2017

I think we can all empathise with the feeling of opening a new piece of tackle and then being desperate to go out and use it. Around the age of 14, I remember being brought my own brolly. This was around the time I started doing the odd night (pretending I was 16 but shhhhh) on the bank carping.

It was late August (in the school summer holidays) and I decided to cart my stuff over to my local carp lake, which was within barrow distance, and fish through the night under my new brolly.

The lake itself was an open expanse with scattered bushes and trees round the outside. It was the most “carpy” of places to fish and it held a good head of carp up to around 20lb which weren’t suicidal but must have been pretty close to it as I had caught them before! Lol.

I remembered reading an article in Crafty Carper magazine about “getting on the wind” and as I barrowed up to the edge of the first swim I noticed the wind was hacking down the opposite end of the 9-acre bowl. With the thoughts of naturals being blown down there and the prospect of all the carp being there I set off, buzzing to get catching



I picked peg 20 which was exactly half way round the lake and right in the teeth of the wind. I remembered adding all the layers I had with me straight away as the brutal gust ripped through my clothes.

No sooner had I chucked my rigs out and scattered bait than I had my first fight with the wind. I tried with all my might to find a spot where I could pitch my new brolly. Opening was hard enough against the force of the wind, so much so that I decided to delay setting it up until later as the wind would drop at night (wishful thinking…)



As the hours ticked by, biteless, a few local anglers pitched up on the swims at the entrance to the bowl opposite me. They began hauling instantly and with my head in my hands and not thinking to move due to the wise words of the article ringing in my ears I told myself these must have been small fish and that I was in for the specimens coming in on the wind.

As night started to fall and with the wind stronger than ever I knew it was now or never. I pushed the brolly open, Velcro’d in the groundsheet, and quickly placed my bedchair on it. I laid anything that had some weight to it on the groundsheet and started pegging the back of the brolly.

With everything done and me inside I sat and hesitantly watched the wind rattle and shake the frame of the brolly. Despite threatening otherwise, the brolly held firm and with a feeling of satisfaction I tucked into my tea of ravioli out of a can and drifted off to sleep in my three-season sleeping bag and all my layers of clothing on!



At around 2am the rain started. Now not being very savvy with overnighters or camping at all I had the brolly positioned so the wind pushed the rain straight in soaking everything. It was a water warzone, all my PVA melted, my sleeping bag was soaked and I looked like a sewer rat after about ten minutes. I pulled the soppy sleeping bag over my head and shut my eyes.

At around 3am my left-hand rod sounded and I sprinted out shoeless in the still driving rain. I hit into the fish and was met with a rush of adrenaline - and the feeling of cold, wet rainwater making it through two pairs of socks. I played the fish in and nearly messed myself when what popped up wasn’t a scaly, stunning mirror but a dirty great angry pike. In reality, it was probably only 12lbs, but it looked like a blooming crocodile to my inexperienced eyes. I netted it and instantly though “what in the world am I going to do? Not only am I scared of it I have no idea how to handle it!”

I pulled the pike onto my unhooking mat and it proceeded to thrash and wriggle all over the place. I stood back, let it do its thing, and then looked to the heavens as I prized my size 8 hook and bright pink boilie from the corner of its mouth.



After a net style reverse return and feeling relieved I headed back to my brolly. Things hadn’t gone to plan but it was a fish and not a blank. I headed back to find no brolly, my bedchair on its back and kit everywhere. In all the piking madness, the wind had ripped my poor brolly which had blown over the small bushes behind and was now on the local B-road. My kit was everywhere and the ground sheet was blown tight to the base of the bushes.

I ran around like some crazed headless chicken, gathering everything I could. As I did so things would blow away again but eventually in the morning after next to no sleep I sat with a piece of me pinning down everything I owned.

With my brolly in tatters and everything else pretty much ruined and drenched I folded, crammed and shoved it onto my barrow and made it home. Much to the amusement of my dad I told him the tale of my “blow out night” but I learnt a valuable lesson in where not to pitch my bivvy.