Luck or Skill

[theoldfart]

Is fishing luck or skill??

I know that there are some types of fishing that if you have no idea what you are doing you may as well stand in the local recreational ground with a rod,,,,ie Mullet fishing , or sea water fly fishing.

But for us mugs who lob a bit of bait out into the tide , how much of it is luck?

You must all have the story of the guy who was lucky,

I know that we had a comp,years ago,(The Starks Hotel Open) and one guy ' Alan Barfield' had never fished before.

He only came down for the bar-b -y and beer. (We had proper comps then)

He fxxx up casting 3 times and eventually left his bait on the shore line for the tide to come in .

Three hours later he got a bass and won the comp , having never even pulled the line in once .

I have been mackerel bashing and the guy next to me caught three Bass on a string of three feathers while we were all hitting the mackerel.

( You catch more with a three feather lure than with a six or seven lure)

To me (within reason) fishing is pure luck.

All the beads, rigs and traces wont make a tits worth of difference.

Basically you are chucking out a bit of bait on a hook and hoping for the best.

I have always used a weight, swivel and hook , (with bait) I have often wondered about all the modern traces with beads etc,

What are people hoping for ? The fish to take their wives out at night and select the most attractive looking trace before they take the bait?

No, it is down to luck, simple as that!!!

A small hook and a worm will catch most, half a mackerel and a big hook for conger /bass ,, simple as that.

Be lucky.

[olly]

in my case catching a record bass it was pure luck. i was in the right place at the right time.
but watching some of the lads on the pier and out on the boat they have pure skill and can teach some ppl a lot of stuff about fishing. mike mobery has tought me a load over the last year or so
me ha im lazy and go fishing to chill
olly

[trigger]

well done t.o.f, theres an old saying that bodes well, "bull!!!t baffles brains " look at most angling magazines, full of adverts for expensive tackle,--- most feature stories will contain a blatant advert for a certain rod, reel or tackle, ( a lot of feature writers own their own brand of tackle.) go in any tackle shop and there is always something new thats the bees knees!!,

how many times have you seen youngsters and holidaymakers,"just chucking it"ending up with a quality fish!. its because thats where they are.
i grew up in Gosport ,my youth was spent in and around Portsmouth harbour, many a happy day was spent (playing hookey from school) wandering the shoreline, reed beds and pontoons, borrowing a dingy and exploring the harbour, ive sat for hrs on the edge of the reed beds watching bass (sometimes huge) follow the tide in just enough water to cover them, watched flounders do the same, even chasing each other as if they were playing,

my bait!! to catch these, Bass! prawns and shrimps attained by emptying the tyres on the pontoons that were used for fenders, elvers and gobbies from under rocks on the shoreline, for the Flounders, small harbour rag tipped with tiny baby crabs that were as big as your thumbnail.

Tackle, size one long shank flounder hooks hand line, swan feathers for floats with the luxury of lead shot, Lures, spoons made from old dessert spoons with handle cut of and shaped (no weight needed) , silver paper wrapped around hook in the shape of a mackeral spinner, weights were nuts ,old spark plugs and stones with hole in. ( this will upset a few) a bamboo cane with a meat skewer that was flattened and barbed tied to the end for a spear, (used to spear mullet from under moored boats in harbour), because of light defraction the point was held in the water as we drifted alongside boats "very effective."

ure right a hook weight and bait is all you need ,nothing complicated,just the basics, 90% of the time if the fish are there and they are , you can catch them. sometimes as with life we tend over complicate things, keep it simple and cheap guys. and yes i agree with t.o.f within reason a lot of luck.
tight lines (hand) guys regards Trigger.

[snoopy54]

T.O.F methinks thou hast opened a whole new canneth of Wormes ..........

I watch with baited breath

[eccles]

There is no doubt in my mind that learning or "skill" makes a huge difference. As I have written before, when I came back to sea angling after a gap of 30 years, I had blank after blank but then I began to learn. What is "learning", it is acquiring skill, and once you have some it makes a lot of difference. Thus I am amongst other things, a skilled gardener and thus I can get a lot of things to grow very well.
BTW may I add at this point that there are an awful lot of youngsters out there who sadly do not bother much with the skills offered by our education system and then go on to live very unsuccessful lives, what a shame.

[snowy]

Third factor - Putting in the hours. You have to be in it to win it!

Luck and skill both come into it but in an even contest skill will always take the prize.

But if you put in the time, learn to study the cycles and environment, luck will take a back seat. That is why top matchmen nearly always come out on top.

[iknowagoodplaice]

When I catch fish it is down to my exceptional skill. When I catch nothing it is of course completely down to bad luck.

[sailorboyrob]

You make your own luck in fishing. If you put. The right bait in the right place at the right time and present it in the right way you will catch the fish you are targetting. Of course you can fluke all of these things, but if you use a bit of skill and knowledge you will be a lot "luckier"

[wedger]

Largely said here by others and I agree all the way...

Anyone can fluke 'em from time to time but in the long term, improving your catch rate there is only one rule

The more skill you apply, the luckier you will be......

Simplesssss

[theoldfart]

Bloody hell I can't remember who said this but it was something along the lines of....

'The more I practice the luckier I get!!'

Hopefully someone can answer the quotation,

[snowy]

Mar 17, 2012 20:12:42 GMT theoldfart said:

Bloody hell I can't remember who said this but it was something along the lines of....

'The more I practice the luckier I get!!'

Hopefully someone can answer the quotation,

Harold Shipman??

Soz, bad taste I know, wont be long before it gets removed.

[theoldfart]

Yeah , but his luck ran out.

Apparently it was Arnold Palmer, or Gary Player, but it could have been Lee Trevino or Tom Watson.

But they are all golfers ,so what do they know about fishing?

[theoldfart]

Mrs Oldfart has just read this and she said that it was what I told her years ago.

She also has told me that ' It is not how deep you fish, it it is how you wiggle your worm that counts.'

Say's it all really!!!

[trigger]

golf now thers a story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ooops sorry



did i ever tell you sbout!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if you play at Seaton in Devon you can drop a line in the sea from the cliff top. might take a rod with my clubs next time

regards Trig

[Cam]

in the grand scheme of things its mostly luck .Luck that you can spend money and time on such a self indulgiant pastime ,and dont tell me you are trying to feed the family .luck that your boss is not insisting you work the weekend .luck that the missis doesnt want you do the garden .luck that as a long term unemployed lay about the goverment dont ship you off to the saltmines .luck that you are still living at home poncing off your mum and dad for a paltry firty quid a week .luck that the chinease dont eat ragworm .yep its just luck going fishing ...but once you get there its pure skill .