What Do We Know ?

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don't know we don't know"

Donald Rumsfeld

I doubt The Don was an angler, but this is how I'd describe what's going on down the local river at the moment. 

The more I fish, the more I realise I understand very little about what's going on.

At the weekend I fished a reliable mark at a good state of the tide with surface and subsurface lures without a touch. 

I'd got some ragworm in the car and thought I'd try them on a float. Fifteen minutes later I'd landed five sizeable bass in the same spot as I'd been thrashing away with the lures. I was surprised to say the least.

Last week I saw the biggest shoals of feeding mullet I've seen in a very long while. I would have bet a hefty sum that I'd have one or two.

Not a touch, despite having feeding fish all over the flies. 

Yesterday I tried a tiny piece of maddie on a size 14 hook for the mullet, that were feeding a foot out in six to eight inches of water.

After a five minutes I  hooked in to a fish that bolted out in to deeper water. It surfaced and I saw it was a decent bass. The tiny hook was wedged nicely in the jaw, but really, I didn't expect bass to be feeding in ultra shallow water in the middle of a sunny day.

As I say, I now know I know nothing, whereas a few years ago I didn't know I knew nothing.

Thanks Don.