Just look back when fishing was popular in the 50's and 60's,polution ,bank erosion limited spaces in clubs and all before we had eastern europeans to blame lol
Its strange compared to the past how fishing has got worse the more effort we put into making it better ,i look at unseen polutants going straight through the so called cleaning thats supposed to happen at sewage works.
I remember getting huge hauls of fish in the canal in edinburgh and you had to wipe the oil off your line on a rag everytime you reeled in plus the fact you could walk across it as it was so full of crap ,i wonder how it is today in its sanitised state?
If you think about it it was just a slightly extended close season its not that dramatic thinking again it wasnt even that ,we lock downed on 23rd march with tecnically made a close season on all waters so not a lot of difference to the past and instead of the 16th of march and you could say it ended two? Weeks after the 16th of june so a fortnight or so longer than the old closed season on ponds 3 weeks or so on rivers