My first decent fish on a hair rig. At Donaldson Dam. What a sight. I was using a 12 foot sea rod with a normal coffee grinder on wire stands and a policeman. The drag was so tight when i got a run the fish ripped the rod off the stand.

I picked up the rod, and something was wrong, i thought the reel had packed in because it wouldn't reel. Colin was with me that day and so were my wife and two daughters.

I then proceeded to walk the fish out. I went back about 60m to get the fish close to the net. Colin went in chest deep to net it. I was over a rise in the ground and my line was dragging on the ground all the way to the water. My wife kept the line off the ground and Colin tried and missed a few times trying to net as we could not communicate properly with me being so deaf and 60m away.

Eventually he netted a nice 8kg common carp. Man what an event. I was happy but i don't think anybody could have made such a huge shambles and still land the fish. It turned out that the line had merely been tangled around the front eye of the rod. Shows what over excitement can do hey.

I once arrived at the water without my reels!

I usually leave them on the rods in the holdall, but took them off to add new line but forgot put them back

Dont worry Rudie, Ive done that 2 or 3 times already with the rod eyes.. Dont feel alone on that one. Its probably because were in such a hurry to get lines out.

I havent done too many stupid things.

Ive pitched up at a dam without my pod before. That really really sucks, believe me.

Haha! Some good ones here, hehehe. Neville, yours take the cake so far..! hehe, but comes in a close second to berties hippo's! hehe.

I've done several stupid things at the water, being a clumsy oke.
When looping my line through the rod's eyes, I missed the first eye, and only realized it when I already had my rod rigged.!
Shot the skin off my fingers when my catapult backfired! this also delivering the method ball into my face!

We all remember our first session at Hengelaars Vriend. Well I went there the day before our session to do some plumbing around with my marker float. How embarresing when I snapped off the marker and lead 3 times in a row. And then I had to paddle out with the resorts canoe to get it. The canoe had a hole in the side,  had to paddle fast! By the time I had reached the bank again I was sitting ankledeep in water!

I have one more to add here and this one i deserved. I was buggering around shooting Colin in the back with boilies out of the catapult and thought it was funny seeing him writhing in pain from shots where i had hardly pulled back the elastic of the catapult.

Anyway i then continued to feed boilies into the swim with the same catapult obvioulsy at full tilt to get them out as far as possible when three boilies stayed in the pouch and came straight back at me into my side. man i was in pain writhing around like a snake whose head had just been cut open.

But as i say, this was one i deserved.