He might well turn in his grave!

I never knew the man. His Still Water angling I regard as a very great book. His No Need to Lie a bore! His Walkers Pitch a delightful read and my memory of his contributions via Angling Times as monumental. So, at best, I can only guess! I often wonder what he'd think of the specialist angling scene that he helped create!! What do you think?

Peter, it's an interesting question, I am just guessing but I think he would have mixed feelings, on the technical side I think he would approve as he was one of the first to use electronic indicators, but as for all the squabbling that goes on I think he would love it he would be right in there giving his opinions, reading some of his old articles he was never slow in pushing his point a great man a pioneer, who deserves the up most respect

[ 05. January 2004, 05:00 PM: Message edited by: Tony C ]

I suspect Chevin, an esteemed AN member, would be well-placed to answer that one, Peter.

Unless my raddled brain has fazed yet again, Chevin is Fred J.'s son-in-law and used to fish with Fred and the great man way back when.

Chevin, are you out there mate?

Terry

I was fortunate enough to have been taught fly-casting by Richard Walker. I remember him as being a very patient man, necessarily so, and a deep thinker. We were fishing a stocked pond and, depite the owner's insistence that all trout were to be killed, Richard Walker caught them effortlessly and then returned them. He said that fishing in a stocked pond wasn't his idea of sport, and that the fish were incidental as he practiced and demonstrated casting techniques. I remember one other would-be fly fisherman telling Richard Walker that he'd been given a fly designed to imitate a trout-pellet, and that he'd heard it was very successful. The great man was clearly saddened by the comment, and suggested that the lad used a trawl-net. I feel that Richard Walker would be equally disgusted by what has happened to specimen carp fishing: he never thought of himself as a carp-specialist, despite holding the carp record at the time. I'm sure that he would find the pursuit of known, named, carp in small pools requiring regular feeding just as artificial as the taking of trout on the fly casting course.

I always liked reading what Dick Walker had to say - thought he was very imaginitive and, as folk say, really up with the technical innovations.

I find it strange that Bernard venables seems to ber remembered more these days. His booms just seemed to churn out the same old stuff to me.

How many people here remember BV's rants about fixed spool reels and how they should be banned? I remember an article by Dick walker in which he was using fixed spool reels for light float fishing before BV had even started fishing.

I have always enjoyed the nostalgia of Bernard Venable, his spirit of angling. It was B.V. who introduced me to the US style of baitcasting with a multiplier. So yes, I'm a great fan of Mr Crabtree! He was way ahead of many of his contempories, but as has been pointed out, way behind with regard to fixed spools.

But he was no less a writer, probably no less an angler than Dick Walker, just different! Bernard wrote a book called just that, 'Bernard Venables'! It was subtitled 'The illustrated Memoirs of a Fisherman'. Fisherman rather than angler!!?? Anyway, in this book, BV expresses his opinion of Dick Walker in, I think, a very fair manner. It's worth reading just for that, and Bernard's opinion of the modern carp scene is spot on, I think!! I would like to have read Walkers opinion of the same.

As a matter of interest Venables sums up modern carp fishing thus:-

'It must be said of the modern carp fisher merely that he is present when his big carp is caught. He sets up his rods in their rests and connects them to the electrical bite alarms. Now, with his boilies out, work done for the time being, the angler retires to sleep. In due course the bite alarm's note wakes him; a carp has picked up one of his boilies, thus hooking itself, with no need for striking. Back to work - he must pick up his rod. He is successful. Angling magazines are constantly full of photographs of these successful anglers, the photographs being all-but identical!

Perhaps an over simplification but it is how many of us see carp fishing. Walker is considered by many to be the father of that style of carp fishing. I rather wish he were around to balance the debate.

Peter, there's one big difference between Dick Walker's carp fishing and that practised today. That difference is self-hooking rigs. It is these I believe that have changed carp fishing more than anything else - more even than the hair rig and the increased availability of big carp.

As Peggy once joked "Carp fisherman just go camping, and whilst at a campsite do a bit of fishing!"

Joking apart, Walker was the first to get across the message, both in his writing and by actually doing it, that big fish were not "fish of a lifetime" but could be caught deliberately and often.

This idea was gone into in detail of course in his ground-breaking book "Still-water Angling." One of the predictions he made in this volume was that stillwaters were the future of angling as our rivers were becoming more and more polluted. How heartened he would be today, just over 50 years later, with the tide at last having being turned!

In the final chapter of his book "Dick Walker's Angling: Theories & Practice, Past, Present and to Come", Walker suggested that "As the number of anglers increases..... it may prove necessary to ration fishing on a time basis. This is already done in some trout fisheries, where an angler may be allocated one or more days per week. I predict that some similar system will have to be applied to some, if not all, coarse fishing waters, many of which are already grossly over-fished and over-crowded"

This forecast has already partly come true with quite a few syndicate carp waters operating a rota system.

On the other hand, a huge number of new waters have been dug since Walker's death. Not only have they been stocked with coarse fish, but with carp - a species with very limited distribution 50 years ago and that Walker popularised so much!

I reckon that's what would have surprised Walker more than anything else!

Thanks for the reply Steve. Didn't know about the second book mentioned. Will have to look out for it.

The proliferation of new still waters probably would have surprised Walker, but would it have pleased him? I think that many would, atleast I hope so. But I wonder what he'd think of these grossly overstocked and regimented match lakes. Or the new lake at Bury Hill containing just 100 carp, all of known weight? Anglings answer to Lakeside, absolute purgatory!

A really interesting subject is Dick Walker! I totaly agree with Petes views on the great mans books and suspect Tony C's guess on what Walkers views on todays scene are about right to.Undoubtedly he was the father of modern specimen hunting and made some great contributions to both game and coarse tackle design.His views on Piking were a bit strange and not based on much practical experience.Never met him inperson but do have several letters from him which in them selves are a tribute to the man,I doubt wether many (if any)of todays angling legends would reply to a young school boys letter with such genuine interest.In fact would they reply at all? One thing I am sure of is that Mr Walker would have loved Internet Forums like this.

Talking of great men I am reading confessions of a carp fisher by BB, published in 1950at the moment. Chris Yates says in the forward that BB hated the modern scene with all the complications of rigs etc. That is not to say that BB was not an innovator himself, constantly thinking of ingenious ways to catch the carp. I was surprised that he actually described using a bait boat, although in his day it was a wind up clock work boat not a remote controlled boat as is often used nowadays. He predates Dick Walker and still describes big carp as almost uncatchable; his own PB was a modest by today’s standards, fifteen pounds. BB died in 1990. Despite not being a regular carp fisher I am really enjoying the book. It has a timeless quality about it and It is not just a book for carp nuts.