Ah yes, Mr Red-Faced Angry. Angling, I believe, began to lose the plot when it got really really big fish- and big bag-obsessed, went all spessie, "serious" and more recently Destination then Meeja Extreme, when a few of our number, one-trick ponies at best with little else going for them in their own careers and lives, began to define themselves as Angler (and very little else), by their reputations for landing slabs, lumps, kippers etc, by doing a lot of 'eavy Liftin' Baggin' and by their regular brandishing of the previously mentioned at a public they fully expect and demand admiration and respect from. Only human nature, of course, just part of life with its ever-present prima donnas, drama queens and talentless attention-seekers, but we Anglers (and particularly the Angling Press that long did nothing to discourage such sorts, indeed did much to promote them) took far too long to rumble them, to turn our backs after raising a metaphorical finger in contemptuous dismissal: to our own and to Angling's cost.
Best take your kids for country walks, get them watching programmes like Countryfile and this one -
BBC iPlayer - The Great British Year: Winter - then on some more walks with a bit tiddler-catching with handnets, get them looking at frogspawn and tadpoles and whatever bugs turn up in the net, show them how the leaves are turning and falling at this time of year, show them some ruddy great chub in a small clear-water stream that you know, how the ducks lead their flotillas of tiny ducklings along the water margins in the spring, how they'll sometimes chase a Mayfly but be beaten to it by one of those chub....
Then, maybe, take them fishing. And tell them - or, rather, teach them by silent example - that it isn't something to get serious about; it's only just fun. If they do get serious about it later though, they'll know that serious Angling isn't about going to war with your fellow fishers; it's just about you and the fish, in private.
