Angling Times This Week

[Dick Dastardly]

People knock the olden days because of knotted nets,poor water quality,matchmen routinely killing pike,poor river management (ie the terrible canalisation of various stretchs of river) barbel in keepnets etc etc etc.But At least anglers caught fish or when they didnt just accepted it!

 

In recent decades the angling press (no doubt fueled by anglers and so reporting what they think they want to hear) all they do is run "excuse campaigns"! Are modern anglers catching so little that we constantly need an excuse as to why fish stocks are "dwindling"?

 

I offer up as evidence such great (often long running) panics/hate campaigns such as "boillies stopping us catching on traditional baits",the great "Cormorant issue" (incidently more recently replaced by a combination of "Eastern Europeans eating all our fish" and "Shoals of fish being stolen for pike baits") and such like!

 

See what Im saying? Be honest how long was it that we were reading the Cormorant thing every week? nothings changed (in fact there are most likely more of the black ***** living in land than ever!) Hardly hear a thing though.No weve just got a new scapegoat the "Eastern European" Bit of playing of the "racist card" and no longer PC to have a go so (or maybe just felt that even the mag buying populace had finally got bored of it?) they turn there attention to Otters/Beavers/whatever else has been "re introduced".

 

Seems to be just a part of modern culture.

[Dick Dastardly]

Have the AT been secretly infiltrated by PETA to inflict a PR disaster on us?

 

 

Not that complicated Stev its simply that AT are a disaster!

[gozzer]

All this crying out for restocking as a 'cure all' as gone on for a long time.

 

I liken it to building a wall. If it keeps sinking, just keep adding more bricks on top, without making sure the foundations are solid enough to support it.

 

John.

[Dick Dastardly]

All this crying out for restocking as a 'cure all' as gone on for a long time.

 

I liken it to building a wall. If it keeps sinking, just keep adding more bricks on top, without making sure the foundations are solid enough to support it.

 

John.

 

Sorry John some how I missed your initial post and have just read it! I forgot about the "Zander problem" another classic even to this day perpetuated by a one time staff member of AT!

 

Anyway we best behave else Elton will be scolding us for "yet another" AT bashing session! I know it seems we are always doing it but............well what can I say? Ive tried to be constructive but its never even acknowledged.Frankly I suppose as far as the angling press is concerned the likes of us are dinosaurs and not in their customer demographic

 

 

I accept that but its no reason for me not to disagree with what they do especially when despite having the choice not to buy/read (which Ive not for a long time) they affect my sport by influencing so many.Sadly due to the level at which they pitch they attract (in general) a lot of fairly inexperienced anglers who are due to that easily influenced.

 

Just the same as the Sun/Star papers that we often liken them to.

Edited July 30, 2009 by BUDGIE

[denzil]

i would be interested in knowing what rivers you experts in otter behaviour fish, cheers denzil.

[Anderoo]

i would be interested in knowing what rivers you experts in otter behaviour fish, cheers denzil.

 

Hi Denzil

 

Thames, Evenlode, Cherwell, Windrush, Ouse, plus others further afield. Plenty of otters (and even more mink - and millions of crayfish) around here

[Steve Walker]

I really don't understand how any fish exist at all today, given the millennia during which we weren't actively persecuting all of their predators...

 

The issue isn't otter behaviour, it's about how you see the place of angling and fish in relation to a river's natural wildlife. For me, fish in the river exist as part of the natural wildlife of the river, including being part of the food web, not as livestock to be protected from predation.

[Anderoo]

I agree Steve, most angling in the UK today is so far removed from the natural world it's a wonder we even want to touch the horrible wet, slimey things when we do catch them.

 

I too always feel a bit guilty when a topic ends up bashing the weeklies, but if they're the public face of fishing, god help us.

[gozzer]

Sorry John some how I missed your initial post and have just read it! I forgot about the "Zander problem" another classic even to this day perpetuated by a one time staff member of AT!

 

No problems Budgie, it's feels good to have people to agree with.

 

I must admit that I was very wary of the 'zander invasion' at the time. But then I've always been against the stocking of alien species.

I remember reading of a couple being caught on the Trent, and waiting to see if they spread into the Yorks Ouse system.

 

As for your earlier mention of water quality. I wonder how some of todays anglers would cope with up to a foot of foam below the weirs on the Trent? We had to make floats with extra long stems to fish them, and surprise, surprise, we actually caught plenty of fish!

 

The expectations are much greater now, due no doubt to the artifical stocking of bigger fish and in ridiculous numbers.

I got sick of the number of times I heard anglers decrying anything under a few pounds as "not worth bothering with", regardless of species. "I can catch carp to double figures at xxxx fisheries", "So why should I bother with them"?

Then there's, "That waters crap, I fished it once and never caught a thing".

 

John.

 

There you go, not one disparaging comment about the angling press.

Edited July 30, 2009 by gozzer

[lutra]

IF the Bristol Avon's barbel have declined because of otters won't the one's that are left grow real big?