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Curse of the 'guest ticket'

Darren Hawen

Darren Hawen

Senior Member & Supporter
Chatting with a friend on the bank a while ago, the conversation got round to guest tickets as I was looking at getting one for a mate in the near future, which prompted us both having stories involving friends fishing on guest tickets, and 'good fish' being taken.

Jim had directed a friend to a swim on the Hants Avon where he caught a 13lber at the first time of asking.

I've seen both sides of this with a friend taking a nice double from a Kennet side stream on his first cast on the first afternoon as my guest, and in around 4 years I could not catch anything above 9lb from the same backwater.

More recently as a guest of a Mr H Cooke, we fished one Kennet stretch all day in heavy rain for nowt, relocated for the evening and I took a fish which at the time was a PB equalling barbel 14.9 - Thanks Howard!

Anyone else come across this? Pure luck? Right place, right time? Too often to be a coincidence?..Who knows..

Darren.
 
Took my wife on a guest ticket once. Her first time fishing. Never again, she out fished me all day. Haven't a clue what she was doing right. Same bait and kit. Haven't taken her since and she has never let's me forget the day. So from then on no guest tickets
 
I remember that day on the Kennet very well Darren. And the phone call "I've got something here you might want to come and see!". To my relief it was a large barbel. I have benefited from the curse once. An invite to fish a southern chalk stream resulted in a 3.9 grayling on my second cast in the first swim. Lovely.
 
I took a friend's 12 year old lad once as a guest,he caught a 13.2 barbel closely followed by a 6lb chub,he gave me a proper thrashing.........didn't take him any more after that.lol
 
I had a bit of a reverse scenario, a carp angling pal wanted to do some chub fishing. I guested him on a prime stretch of chub river, put him in my favourite swim and instructed him on the most productive way to fish it. After a couple of hours he insisted on swapping swims with me as I'd had a couple of small ones while he was blanking, I stressed that the best sport was usually in his swim but he wouldn't hear of it. Having swapped swims I then caught my PB chub of 6lb05oz first trot down which my mate kindly netted for me. He wasn't happy!
 
Gavin Hoe-Richardson said:
I had a bit of a reverse scenario, a carp angling pal wanted to do some chub fishing. I guested him on a prime stretch of chub river, put him in my favourite swim and instructed him on the most productive way to fish it. After a couple of hours he insisted on swapping swims with me as I'd had a couple of small ones while he was blanking, I stressed that the best sport was usually in his swim but he wouldn't hear of it. Having swapped swims I then caught my PB chub of 6lb05oz first trot down which my mate kindly netted for me. He wasn't happy!
Click to expand...

Nice Gavin.... VERY nice:)

I've very rarely taken guests onto a water, but a few weeks ago a took a lady-friend lure-fishing onto a large reservoir. She'd only ever thrown a lure around on a canal before but, as I was fed up with her losing lures on opposite bank bushes, I thought giving her 100 acres of water to cast at was a better and cheaper option :) Anyways....she caught (plenty)...I didn't get a touch.
We went to the pub early that day :eek:
 
Aged about 16 myself and a friend decided we would target the uncatchable carp in a small pond - my first night fishing session... So we baited up the intended swim on alternate days with catfood mixed with breadcrumbs - him one day me the next for 2 weeks. People made comments about the smell at school, but didn't care as we were on a mission. On the evening of the ultimate fishing trip My mate's little brother of about 12 years old, came along and he caught a beautiful tench and yes a carp of about 8lb - massive! All boded well for us to have a great night. Little brother had to go home because his mum wouldn't allow him to stay the whole night and we fished on, surrounded by rats with inert rods and stinking of catfood. We caught nothing.

The carp in that pond were impossible, you'd chuck out crust and it would be attacked by hoardes of roach and rudd and then a big basking carpp would come along and whoomf - gone. If you put a line and hook on it the carp wouldn't touch it.
 
Took a friend to Burghfield on the Kennet when it was part of Cemex ticket. He had never fished before for anything ! Decided to fish the weir pool run off mainly as it meant we could fish close together. I set him up, cast in for him and sat behind the rod telling him he would know if he got a bite. I then went to set up my kit in the next swim, I hadn't even finished setting up when he called me and said he thought he had something on ! When I got to him he said he thought he had lost it but his rod was still bent, I took the rod from him and found the fish had weeded him, I freed it and gave him the rod back, then soon aft landed a 13.2 barbel for him ! He went on to catch chub and a 1lb+ roach too. I blanked !
 
Hope this works for me next June on a certain stretch of the Nidd. I've already got more yearbooks than I can afford, and won't be joining this other club just because it's the most assured place to catch in June, but it's not day ticket water so I've already asked a couple of mates to take me on guest tickets 3-4 times! I'm already dreaming about it having unbelievably blanked on my favourite river in 2016!
 
Been on both sides of this with my buddy Chris Netto. I Went with him twice to a stretch of river he fished. He never caught a barbel there, I caught three, two were doubles including a new PB. He came down to the Stour with me one day, I fell in, he caught his first river carp, only 19lbs! Works both ways.
 
A fellow BFW member took me on a guest ticket to two different venues where I caught doubles on both occasions. He then took me to a day-ticket stretch where I had my PB (at the time). He also put me onto my PB zander and PB pike!

I showed another mate a particular swim on a day-ticket stretch and he had his PB barbel from the Swale. He reciprocated by guiding me to a particular spot on a Yorkshire river from which I had a PB 3lb 7oz perch and on another occasion a bream of over 9lbs!

Both acquaintances have been made via fishing forums such as this one.
 
Put a friend of mine who is a very annoyingly confident boarding on cocky angler in a swim with a sunken snag one evening,kept saying what a banker swim it was.......he did loads of gear and caught nothing
 
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