Quantum Leap?

[poledark]

Dave, were you using the latest carboniferous rods, or still on the splitacios bamboo ones?

Den

Edited January 19, 2006 by poledark

[Jim Gibbinson]

Dave, were you using the latest carboniferous rods, or still on the splitacios bamboo ones?

Den

 

You gave me a smile with that, Den!

 

Re. the original subject - it isn't necessary to go back to a bygone era to experience something exciting and fresh, simply try a new and different sort of fishing. Anyone who takes up a (for them) untried form of fishing will, in effect, become a beginner again with its accompanying hunger for knowledge and experience.

 

So, if you've never cast a fly, or stalked chub in an overgrown small river, or fished for pollack off the rocks, or trotted for dace, or float-fished the margins for tench, or worked a shallow-diving plug over subsurface weeds, or........... well you get the picture. Give it a try.

[Alan Stubbs]

Dave, were you using the latest carboniferous rods, or still on the splitacios bamboo ones?

Den

 

 

He stopped off in the Stone Age for his weights and the Iron Age for his swivels.

 

If I could have time over again, I'd like to have fished the waters my father had the opportunity to fish in Singapore. On one occasion I was allowed to fish with Dad and some Malays on a kelong (a fishing hut, on stilts about a mile offshore). I recall Dad catching tiger shark, flying fish, parrot fish, sun fish and various species of grouper on rod and reel, whilst the Malays were dropping a net through a trapdoor in the floor of the hut .

 

One of the men caught a stone fish in his net and the panic ensuing has stuck in my mind for over 45 years.

[Mald]

Great thread.

 

The thing that strikes me when reading Casting at the sun ( Chris yates ) are all the lakes he found with fish in them that were totally un fished and un known to anglers.

 

Little overgrown 3 acre jobs in the grounds of old statley homes.

 

Do these kind of waters still exist or has every hole in the ground been claimed by now.

 

Is it possible to get your map out and find your own little secret pool or has that time passed...

 

offcourse IF you had found one you wouldn't be telling anyone !!

[Julian]

Thanks for the info, Den.

 

Interesting stuff - much appreciated.

 

 

..it isn't necessary to go back to a bygone era to experience something exciting and fresh...

 

Fully agree Jim but that wasn’t really the vein of the post. Like many, I’m always tweaking my targets and challenges and my fishing is just as exciting now as it was the fist day I wet a line, more so, in fact.

 

However, I can’t help but feel that an amount of the magic has diminished from those early days. I love the idea of finding new waters where the stock is unknown and the methods unproven. I’m not saying it can’t be done now as I have discovered the odd little gem in my time that few have known about, but let’s face it; there are not too many big fish waters around today where we don’t know the exact weights, names, and favourite baits of most of the inhabitants!

 

Cheers...

 

Julian

 

Edited to add: Mald, you beat me to the point about waters!

[poledark]

Mald, at the risk of sounding a bit pretentious(?) , most of the Surrey/Sussex waters that Chris Yates "found" had already been "visited" and fished by quite a few of us at least 10 years earlier.

 

Not to take anything away from Chris....in fact, the very opposite...when I started to read his account of his chidhood it evoked such strong similarities with my own youth, that I actually wondered if I had met and discussed my life with him

 

The ponds which were buried under the M23 I had actually fished several years earlier for the wild carp that they contained.

 

Delicious memories, all of them...and don't get me going about the Arun and Sussex Rother

 

Den

Edited January 19, 2006 by poledark

[Jim Gibbinson]

Julian, if you are talking about big fish, then it's true that there are very few undiscovered waters around. Anglers who are willing to lower their sights somewhat will, however, find a lot of untapped potential. I can't speak for other parts of the country, but here in the south-east, where I live, most rivers and drains hold carp, but fishing tends to be confined to specific locations. Most stretches of most rivers/drains are neglected - they may not hold many carp, and the fish they do hold may not be particularly big, but in most cases it's a 99% bet that those carp have never been hooked. The point I'm making is that the pioneering spirit and sense of discovery that existed back in the 50s and 60s, and to an extent the 70s, can still be experienced today. It means foregoing the "privilege" of adding one's name to the list of those who've caught Big Scale, Split Tail or whatever........ But some of us reckon that capturing such fish is a pretty dubious privilege anyway!

 

Unexploited still waters are harder to find - but even they exist. My policy is to look for waters that lie in the vicinity of high-profile big fish venues. Such "Cinderella" waters, as I call them, tend to be overlooked. Night-fishing bans and boilie-bans also contribute to neglect.

 

They're out there - you just have to have the confidence to take a risk.

[Julian]

Great comments, Jim – fully agree.

 

At the end of the day your fishing will only ever be what you make it. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little nostalgia now and then.

 

I’ve always been a bit of an adventurer and regularly go off to investigate a new spot on the map or a snippet of hearsay. Often it’s a dead end, but every now and then you get lucky. I guess it comes from growing up as a kid in a totally cut-off wooded valley where the nearest house was a few miles away. My brother and I would always be off adventuring for days on end, making camps and enjoying the outdoors; the excitement never came from what we found, more from the journey itself.

[gozzer]

Just finished reading Quest for Carp by Jack Hilton; an amazing book that covers his exploits on waters like Ashlea and Redmire during the late sixties and early seventies and it got me thinking - If you had the opportunity to do your carp fishing in a different era – would you take it?

 

I must admit that I’d jump at the chance to do my fishing in a bygone age. I’m never happier than when I’ve got my head in an old fishing book reading about the ‘pioneering’ days of old when it was as much about finding a water with carp in it, as it was about trying to catch them!

 

How about you? Would you prefer to fish in the present day with the possibility of catching a UK carp over 60lb! Or even in the future – you have to wonder how big home-grown UK fish will be in twenty years time!?

 

I'm not a dyed in the wool carp angler, like divercity too much, but this thread is a great idea, you should post it on the coarse forum ,and let a few others enjoy it

[Mald]

Sounds like a wonderful adventure Den.

 

Reading that book I'de got the impression these places hadn't seen a hook in a long time.

 

It gives it a nice perspective to know others were treading the same ground.