Lack of young pleasure/match anglers

[Waveney One]

There seems to a great lack of young pleasure/match anglers. I find it very worrying that on most matches I fish, the average age is probably 50 or more. One of the main reasons for the lack of young people going into match fishing I believe is the upsurge in carp fishing. I blame this squarely on the TV programmes where there are very few that cover aspects of the sport other than specimen fishing. I get youngsters for coaching that after a couple of lessons want to go carping or piking. I have terrible problems explaining to them that there is a lot more to fishing than sitting waiting for a bite alarm to go off. The progression through roach, perch, chub, tench etc to specimen fishing is vital to becoming a good angler in my opinion. In fact I started with stcklebacks a net and a jam jar. That is what they want though.

 

The problem is they get all the gear, sit it out getting bored for a few outings without any runs and then put all the gear onto e-bay and never pick up a rod again. There was a 30lb + carp caught by a 12 year old at the Suffolk Water Park the other week. I had breakfast with him the next morning. He was absolutely full of it. Great for him I suppose but where does he go from there? Chasing bigger and bigger and fish? I suspect that every 20 lb fish he catches now will be a let down. Sad but very true.

 

This is a special interest of mine, getting youngsters into fishing, hence my coaching activities. If you have an active junior section in your club, have you seen the Allthingspiscatorial website? They have a special page for clubs with junior sections and if you want you can put your club details on there for free. The Gipping Valley Angling Angling Club has a thriving junior section. One of the keys seems to be to have some active members with kids that wish to fish. That is where the momentum comes from in my view.

The link is http://www.allthingspiscatorial.com/...glingclubs.htm

I know that Steve Gray who runs the site is keen to get as many clubs as possible listed on here. The site gets frequent mentions in Angler's Mail, and on Keith Arthur's Fishermans Blues radio show on Talksport Radio. Keith often gets asked by listeners where can they take their kids to get some coaching and Steve Gray's listing is somewhere Keith can direct them.

 

What is your opinion?

[Steve Walker]

What is your opinion?

 

Same as yours.

[Waveney One]

The last time I took juniors Pike fishing, I set up a rod pod with bites alarms on and float legered dead roach. They were amazed that the float registered the run long before anything happened to the alarm. I explained that relying solely on using the alarms can lead to deep hooked fish. They also enjoyed seeing the float run along and slowly submerge.

[Dick Dastardly]

Same as here to! A local tackle dealer once said to me-

 

"The only people who buy float rods now are old men"

 

He was being deadly serious.

 

Sad thing is they are not only missing out on some great fun but also on building up a good basic knowledge that will ultimately help them catch more big carp etc!

[greg long]

All forms of the sport suffer due to the trend of action video games X-box etc., overabundance of money for other things...cinema etc. and parents who don't have the time to take kids, lets be honest how many anglers take thier kids with them?

I know because I fished competitions for years my son rarely got to go fishing with me. He does fish occaisionally, we are due to go sea fishing shortly, but is not a regular angler. We encourage kids through our club, but there is only so much you can do.

[markp]

Have to agree with the 3 of you but then the price to fish an open match is far to high for most kids to pay, £10 pools{i know some organisers let children in cheaper} bait for the day anything between £5 and £15 then the little extras like a breakfast and the cost soon mounts up thats the main reason i stopped match fishing spending a fortune on a days fishing where as go carp/piking/pleasure its a hell of a lot cheaper, i dont think my paper round would have covered the cost of fishing a match.

[Anderoo]

I missed out on a fantastic float rod on ebay yesterday by £2 - damn old men!

 

I can't disagree with anything here, it's a real shame. What will 'angling' look like in a generation? I accidentally bought one of the comics a week or so ago and it had an article on a baitboat with GPS for christ's sake!

[ColinW]

Since when have kids had any interest in what will be "good for them" in ten years time? To be honest I feel sorry for them. By the time they are seventeen they have done everything. Then what do they do to alleviate the boredom of the next sixty years?

[gozzer]

This something that I've been harping on about for a few years now. But you can't put all the blame on TV prog's. I was in the newsagents on Saturday, and while queuing I looked down at the magazine's, there were 5 in a line, all carp specific, and the rest, bar one, had carp as the main front page feature.

I'm afraid it's the 'instant' culture that's to blame. Instant fish from overstocked commercial waters.

When fishing for roach, and 'accidentally' catching a carp of 6-7lb from a very small mill pond, I've had kids of 10-12 yrs old saying "Is that all they grow to in here? It's not worth bothering, there's 20lbers in ***** lake".

 

I'll stop now before I go into.."When I were a lad" mode.

[david t]

I always take try to take my little brother and his friend to the river primarily to float fish, or if not down to the canal to get a lot of bites.

 

Its surely better to get young people catching lots of fish and learning how to build a swim, learning how fish react to different things and learning how to use your tackle like its an extension of your arm. I think that time sat being rods on rod pods is not time actually fishing, where children are concerned, until they know whats going on, and the reasons for using rods such as that, in that manner.