 Few
if any of us actually enjoy blanking while piking. True a blank day can be an
enjoyable one, especially if the company and or scenery is good, but in general
the days that we enjoy most are those during which we actually achieve our goal
and put a pike or two on the bank. However, I've put this short piece together
to try to assure some of you fellow blankers of the value of a good blank.
"A good blank", I hear you say. "There's no such thing!" But I have to say
that I believe that there definitely is. Having said that, I'd agree that there
are blank days on which there really does seem to be very little of a positive
nature to draw on.
However, even some of the ghastliest blanks that it's
been my misfortune to experience are eventually, in some small way, helping me
to become the proficient piker that I'm starting to believe I may eventually be.
Let me elaborate and try to paint a fuller picture of what it is I'm trying to
say.
Take for example the experiences that I have had in the twelve or
so years that I have been piking whilst fishing in the rain. Well, these experiences
gained during the first eight years of my piking, when under any weather conditions,
I would he out there dawn till dusk pursuing esox have led me to the conclusion
that on the majority of waters that I fish the pike are not particularly inclined
to feed during rainy conditions and on some of them it has actually appeared to
be the kiss of death!
These conclusions have not been reached overnight,
because as I've already stated, for eight years I still went piking, regardless
of the weather conditions. But by closely scrutinising my results over that period
it was plain to see that little of note had been caught during rainy weather and
on many occasions a complete blank was recorded. By learning from those rainy
blanks I have, for the past four seasons, dramatically reduced the number of times
I have had a blank on a rainy day. The simple answer as to why this has been the
case is that these days I rarely venture out in rainy conditions, in effect I
have become a self confessed fair weather angler, and I'm proud of it too!
It is impossible though to avoid fishing in the rain at some point, due to
the fact that despite the many millions of pounds that the meteorology department
spends on weather prediction in this country it still doesn't prevent them from
being crap at it. As a consequence it often rains when they say it won't and conversely
it also fails to rain when they say that it will and so on. Of course I still
blank in the rain and of course on those occasions when they have predicted rain
and it has failed to materialise. I may also be missing the odd fish or two, by
not going out in the rain, but it is a risk that I have come to accept.
Another example I can think of, and this is one which I'm sure most of you will
already be aware of, is that of extreme and rapidly plummeting temperatures. Few
of you reading this would consider this to be the best conditions during which
to attempt to catch pike and perhaps you will have reached your conclusions by
having blanked during such conditions on a previous occasion.
Another
example that I can think of relates to lunar cycles. The relation between lunar
cycles and pike captures is a relatively unexplored avenue at present but I have
myself found a relationship between these cycles and my own captures, and again
it was the blanks as much as the captures that have helped me to discern this
relationship. In short I've found that by looking at 6/7 years of my fishing log
that a great many of the better fish that I've caught from one particular water,
have fallen during the same two weeks of the lunar cycle. By using this information
I can now give that particular venue a bit of a miss for two out of every four
weeks.
I hope that by taking on board my views on the subject of blanks
that you will start to appreciate that they are of some value and that if a blank
is used wisely it may well prevent another in the future. To help eliminate my
own blanks I keep accurate records of most of my days out piking. Things like
air temperature (rising or falling), wind direction and strength, weather conditions
and even lunar cycles are all logged not only on days when I catch but also on
days when I don't and the information that I gain is used to my advantage so that
in future I'll hopefully spend more time catching and less time blanking.
So the next
time you blank don't just rue your apparent misfortune but try to salvage something
from it for the future. And remember, it's good to blank!
This article first appeared
in Pikelines 78 (November 1997) - on this website 13/2/04 |
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