Hand lining!

[Peter Waller]

Don't apologise Fenboy. Our first big mistake was in dumping the close season. There are times when I don't think that we have a great deal to thank the mass carp industry for. Carp angling is one thing, the mass carp industry is another, unfortunately.

[fenboy]

Yep, it's all down to money at the end of the day. The angling/tackle trade didn't want a close season. Semi-pro match anglers need to win to get money. Fishery owners cash in on naive anglers' greed by stuffing more fish in...

 

THE GREATEST SCAM OF ALL TIME

Sneaky Sid comes up with a brainwave. He digs a hole, fills it with water and more fish than it can support. How does he keep his fish alive? Easy, he gets anglers to do it for him... and what's more, he CHARGES them for the privilege.

 

Happily, he's able to cash in rather nicely, thanks to the vain anglers who kid themselves that they're superstars because they catch a lot of ish by supporting such places. You can just imagine them boasting afterwards about the haul they've had.

 

Hate to shatter the dreams, but 100 lb of fish from an overstuffed carp pool means absolutely nothing if you are talking about skill levels, never mind angling ethics.

 

It's like claiming you've run a four-minute mile when in fact you hitched a lift in a passing car.

 

Dream on, lads.

[fenboy]

One or two things I forgot...

 

MORE WAYS TO ALIENATE THE GENERAL PUBLIC

 

1. Modern match fishing. Let's get hundreds of foul-mouthed yobs dressed in bright clothes, each with their own Meccano set of aluminium platforms and the like in the countryside of a weekend. Let them block the towpath with the thousands of pounds worth of kit that's apparently required to snatch out a few very small fish... and then curse at every passing dog-walker and cyclist. Oh yes,and while you're at it, why not urinate for the benefit of the public?

 

2. Pike anglers. Despite knowing that our target species is very fragile and likely to die if caught too often, let's lay siege on a particular big specimen if we happen to know where it lives in a fairly small water. A big pike dead? Well, at least I caught it before it snuffed it...

 

3. Carp anglers. Let's quit our jobs and live full-time on the lakeside, smoking joints and crapping in the bushes.

 

4. Barbel anglers. Let's make a mockery of river fishing and act like carp anglers (see above).

 

5. Angling politicians. We all hate each other, so let's each have a national organisation of our own (those suffering from scizophrenia are allowed two).

 

That's enough. I'm off to bed.

[Peter Waller]

Errr Fenboy, hasn't anyone ever told you that the truth is often offensive?

[Newt]

Ah Peter - haven't you heard that the very best defensive is often a good offensive?

[Peter Waller]

Whoops, hadn't seen it in that light Newt!

[poledark]

Fenboy, I do have a great deal of sympathy and respect for your views on some of the modern anglers and their behavior, but that has nothing to do with the practise of handlining as originally posted,

Trust me mate, it really does no harm and was devised as a way of quickly and quietly getting a fish in the net. Actually quite fish friendly!!

 

Modern day carpers??????? not all yobs, especially those who tend to fish all year round.......but the scum that emerge in the summer are a different lot altogether.

 

I have fished a new (and pretty raw looking) pit this winter, and a lot of the time there have been just the hardened few, but as the weather warmed up so the place got busier and noisier.

 

Despite this the foliage has started to cover the scars made by the machines and the place has started to look quite reasonable.

 

Last week, just before the bank holiday, I fished there and by evening the place was packed. The shouting and laughter got louder as the cans of beer were emptied and at 9pm I had had enough and packed up .........not my scene, and I doubt if it would have been yours either.

 

I went back again yesterday and only two other anglers there.........you would have been happy there!!!!!

 

Den

[The Diamond Geezer]

quote:

---

Originally posted by poledark:

 

We could of course go right back to the beginning and use a short handline with a hook and the strongest bit of twine and dangle our baits in the edge and pull out the fish by hand...... Den

---

That's all we 'ad when I were a lad. No rod, no reel, just a stick and a bit of twine ... an' we were lucky ... an' after fishing, all we 'ad fer supper were't damp rag soaked in sulphuric acid to suck .. an' we were lucky

 

In fact, thinking about it, we di'n't have stick or twine either ... had to tickle every fish out

 

DG

 

[ 04. June 2004, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: The Diamond Geezer ]

[Peter Waller]

poledark:

Fenboy, I do have a great deal of sympathy and respect for your views on some of the modern anglers and their behavior, but that has nothing to do with the practise of handlining as originally posted,

Trust me mate, it really does no harm and was devised as a way of quickly and quietly getting a fish in the net. Actually quite fish friendly!!

 

 

Den

Den, your posts are a calming and reasonable response to the outpoorings of the tormented and deserve the respect that is owed to sound wisdom. But in this instance I think that you are missing a major point!

 

As I see it the reasoning behind this handlining issue is simply that it allows an angler to cram more fish into his keepnet within a limited timespan.

 

Many people now see angling as simply pounds spent and pounds landed. The wheres and the doings are purely incidental.

 

In this instance handlining is seen as another nail in the coffin of angling, it is just one more step in reducing angling to mere fishing. Handlining is not the problem, it is the ethos and reasoning behind it my friend.

 

And looked at as such then all Fenboy's other truths are interwoven with the original thread. Angling is in danger of loosing the very values that make it angling.

[awaaar]

very well put Peter.

 

respect.