'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'
A recent trip to the dentist proved, beyond doubt to our hard-nosed columnist, that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ – and the same applies to your fishing
It appears to me that the older you get, the more boring people think you are. Personally I have been there, done that and got myself a T-shirt or two, and don’t think I have a single thing to prove to anyone. Indeed, I have only ever tried to prove things to myself, what others think is something of an irrelevance for me, which all means that I have come to a very uncomplicated and stress-free period in my life. The problem here, for those that think ‘oldies’ are boring, is that the older you get, the more you realise there is very little need to change the things you have been doing for years, because they work.
For example, one of life’s concerns when the years are advancing, is weight gain. Now, I have lived a very active life, and at times when the waist line was expanding there was only one option, eat less and do more. Sounds so simple doesn’t it, but believe me, it works. I had no need to enter into some mind-bending (and very often, gut churning) fashionable diet, because there was always my simple answer. Like the vast majority, the ‘in-vogue’ diet gave fat people all the excuses they will ever need to stay fat, and of course made the originators lots of money. My fitness has always meant a lot to me. I have run marathons, mega marathons, reached national qualifying times in athletics and completed just about every physical challenge the Army ever set me, and again I never changed my diet or followed the latest fad way of training.
Indeed, I have let my body deal with everything, just as nature intended it to do. The last time I took antibiotics was for an appendix operation in the early nineties, I wouldn’t have taken them given the choice, I hate the damn things, so my abstinence has, I believe, left my body with a good and naturally strong defence against most bugs. In fact, I don’t even like taking an Anadin for a headache, I just let things take their natural course. And you will never guess what… it works!
About 18 months ago Lynn and my mother, who used to work within the dental industry, persuaded me to go to the dentist. I didn’t want to of course, but most importantly, there was no need for me to do so, but off I went. Now, I think it best to tell you that I hadn’t been to the dentist in over 20 years. The Army had tried to get my in the chair on many occasions, but by making sure I was far too busy to attend any appointments, I avoided the chair. It’s not that I am frightened of the dentist’s drill; it’s just that I could never see the point if nothing was wrong in the first place. Anyway, I lay down and the guy started poking around a bit. I have a feeling that given my history, he had already planned his summer holiday on the strength of the dollar he was about to relieve me of. However, about fifteen minutes later I was at the reception booking a hygienist appointment, at the dentist’s request, having had not a single thing wrong in my mouth.
Everything needs to work faultlessly in these situations, and my rigs do just that… as always
A week later I was back for that session, which left my gob feeling just fine and dandy. And that is when the wheels started falling off. To cut a long story short, in the past year I have had three fillings, two of my teeth have had bits fall off them, and ultimately, a tooth removed just before last Christmas. Which all in all has strengthened my resolve to simply leave things just the way they are in the future! I have also come to the conclusion that dentists are in collusion with electric toothbrush manufacturers, because for the life of me I cannot see the need for one. They don’t work (although Lynn and my mother disagree), and as far as I am concerned are completely unnecessary, and because they are so crap, you end up spending a great deal more of your time paying for your dentist’s trip to Necker Island for a couple of weeks!
And I just can’t help feeling that some people work along similar lines in carp fishing. It was in this very magazine I read a comment that stopped me in my tracks. Not because of its life-changing importance, but because of its complete and utter stupidity. The author had stated that if you do the same thing on all the waters you visit then you will very soon come a cropper. What a load of bollocks!
I ain’t come a cropper yet and I believe I never will
In 2008 I was approached to make a series of programmes for an on-line channel called Fishing.Tv. It was unique and challenging so I wasted no time in agreeing to get involved. All that was left to do was sort out where I would be fishing and just as importantly, how I was going to do it. In the end I decided that I wanted to prove a point, and the point was that I could use exactly the same set-up in varied environments without any detriment to my results.
I was going to use 4ft of leadcore, a lead clip armed with a flat pear lead of 3oz, six-inches of strippable braid attached to a size 7 hook with a long Hair. The hookbait would be a 15mm bottom bait tipped with a bit of yellow corn. On every occasion I loaded the rig with a PVA bag of boillie halves and quarters with some Response Pellets. To be honest, it was the set-up that I had been using for years, so confidence was high.
The waters I fished were: a shallow gravel pit, a very deep gravel pit, a river, a very deep sand pit and a very silty mere in Shropshire. And it simply cannot get more varied than that. I didn’t change the colours to match anything, and in every case I was successful. In one programme I caught two forty-plus mirrors along with several thirties, in another I landed the biggest carp in the lake, and even caught a personal best barbel from the river. When the pressure was really on, and I needed to be on top of my game, the set-up never let me down and is still the end tackle that I use for the vast majority of my fishing today. I haven’t come a cropper yet and I don’t believe I ever will.
So with that side of the carp fishing equation sorted I can now concentrate on the infinitely more important aspects of my life, like taking my dentist to the most uncomfortable lake in the land and expose him to the discomforts and pain he has visited upon me for a while. Now that would be a right result. Only my opinion of course. Laters. Chilly.