Modern fishing, a joyless experience?

[Philip]

...yep u2..

 

[108831]

Thanks a lot.

 

[andylab]

I had a joyless (in catching fish sense) session last night trotting on the Hants Avon but it was magical. Standing in the middle of the river late into the evening few small dace, chub stayed away. Would do it every day if I could.

 

[flightliner]

I had a joyless (in catching fish sense) session last night trotting on the Hants Avon but it was magical. Standing in the middle of the river late into the evening few small dace, chub stayed away. Would do it every day if I could. View attachment 6897

Andylab-- I would give my eyeteeth to live so close to the Avon and Stour!

 

[108831]

There's loads of yorkies fishing down there Mick...

 

[john step]

Grass is always greener Mick ??
I had a week on it a year or two back. Salisbury traffic made the M25 that Skippy rants about seem like a free flowing dream

 

[nottskev]

I know the grass is greener, and so on, but I sometimes wish my fishing sessions started with "I'd been watching a group of barbel silhouetted against the clean gravel between the lush weedbeds". Instead of "I stared out across the 80 metres of tea-coloured 10 'deep water and wondered if there were any fish in front of me". It would also be nice, I imagine, to stand next to the water on a flat grassy bank instead of climbing and sliding down a 30' embankment and wondering, if I haven't fallen in off the ledge I'm perched on, how I'm going to get back up. The traffic may be worse (although Nottingham traffic is a match for any) but those Avon and Stour scenes do make me wish sometimes.....

 

[David L Johnson]

It’s easy to sneer at those that do it differently, but at the end of the day we are all anglers and we are all important to keep the sport going. Tribalism, whilst I’m guilty of it myself, is only harmful to angling. Without the evolution of modern carp angling, I think the sport would have died off almost completely. I don’t own a bivvy, rod-pod etc. But I can see the attraction for some. Camping outside, fairly stress free, have a drink and relax completely once your rods are out etc. Although one thing I don’t get about carp anglers in Lancashire (where I live) is, well, why bother carp fishing in Lancashire? The vast majority of waters are dominated by double figure fish, a 20lb fish is quite rare with 30s being almost unheard of apart from a handful of super well known fish in super well known waters. Lancashire is virtually empty of specimen carp (i.e. over 40lb). But it’s full of specimen perch, roach, pike, crucians, rudd etc. Why sit behind three Diawa Tournament big pit reels, loaded with 50lb braid on 3.5lb tc rods if the biggest fish in the, usually small, lake is 21lb and the average is 12lb? Why not just spend a fraction of what you spent on one reel on fuel and syndicate/club membership and drive south where you’ve a chance of catching a specimen carp? I love catching 10lb carp on floating baits, but such fish don’t need a 3lb tc rod, but if that’s what you enjoy it’s harmless.

Personally, the one aspect of the sport I don’t get and which is still inexplicably popular in Lancashire, is pole fishing. On most of the stillwaters that I fish it’s either triple rod carp fishing or pole fishing with no one but me in between. I’m weird because I fish a float rod or single feeder. I just don’t get the attraction of hooking a tiny skimmer bream on elastic, sliding that enormously heavy pole (yes, even the most expensive space age poles are enormously heavy rigid sticks compared to the tiny fish they hook), faffing around dismantling the sections, unhooking a skimmer so light relative to the pole it’s impossible to know it’s there and then repeating the faff in reverse. I suppose this is because I’m not competitive and don’t understand match fishing. At least, unlike Lancashire carp fishing, Lancashire match fishing makes biological sense as most of our cold, acidic waters are stuffed full of small silverfish but too cold and acidic to produce record breakers of most species.

But saying all the above we have to appreciate it’s each to their own and tribalism harms the sport of angling. Whether we enjoy endless faffing around with massive poles, stalking fish or catching 15lb carp on gear designed to catch 60lbers, we are all anglers and vital to the continuity of the sport.

 

[Philip]

I think its sometimes easy to look at fishing elsewhere and wish you had it like that where you are but you can bet your bottom doller someone else wishes they had your fishing on their doorstep too.

I also think the type of venues people wish for are sometimes closer than they think but they need finding and perhaps goals changed a little. Take the example of the dream Avon scenario…clear water, gravel, streamer and so on…its likely people do have streams within reasonable distance of them that have all these features in places but perhaps not large fish in them. I am always interested in the tributaries of the main rivers and even the tributaries of the tributaries. When I am checking out a new river I always make sure I put some time aside to look at these connecting streams. Even in the most built up bits of Greater London there were some amazing little waters. If you took a photo of the water you would never guess where it was. As a kid I used to catch wild Brown trout from little chalk streams inside the M25 & given a bit of time I am confident I could probably still do that today.

Its worth taking a walk off the beaten track from time to time as you might find a little bit of magic closer than you think & above all else if you do, don’t tell anyone.

 

[john step]

I know the grass is greener, and so on, but I sometimes wish my fishing sessions started with "I'd been watching a group of barbel silhouetted against the clean gravel between the lush weedbeds". Instead of "I stared out across the 80 metres of tea-coloured 10 'deep water and wondered if there were any fish in front of me". It would also be nice, I imagine, to stand next to the water on a flat grassy bank instead of climbing and sliding down a 30' embankment and wondering, if I haven't fallen in off the ledge I'm perched on, how I'm going to get back up. The traffic may be worse (although Nottingham traffic is a match for any) but those Avon and Stour scenes do make me wish sometimes.....

I am not in the first flush of youth but I make the effort to get away each year to somewhere like that or somewhere equally iconic with a tent...Its cheaper than a hotel and I can stay for a week or so if I fancy. I had better not ramble on anymore or PC will demand "stick to thread"

 

[108831]

Kev,just to say the Avon hasn't the amount of fish to watch as it once did and in my experience you rarely just saw a barbel on the gravels,they usually had to be fed,left alone and returned to,to have a sneaky peek into the swim,if you had opted right you might have seen a few,on the Stour it's a similar story,where I fish on the tidal you rarely see one,maybe a flashing fish,the visibility isn't quite good enough,it is a case of be careful what you wish for,as often in clear water a slight error could mean a massive spook,with no fish returning,it's fun in many ways,but frustrating in others,did you fish the Dove at all Kev,I believe you could see them there?

 

[Mark Wintle]

You'd also find that much of the Avon from Salisbury to Christchurch is either unfishable due to weed, unavailable or very expensive and exclusive. There are a few club stretches and very little day ticket water.

The Stour has some busy bits with a good head of fish and some big fish but it also has miles of unfished and practically fishless water, especially from Wimborne to Blandford. It's been a very long time since I saw a shoal of barbel in the Stour.

 

[theartist]

I was also going to say the Avon and Stour have been living off past glories for quite a few years now despite some noteworthy restoration projects by the locals, hope they come back to form as it must be hard looking at gravels where big shoals of roach and barbel used to sit and not see much, much like the Ivel and Ouse

 

[108831]

I think the Ivel,like the Lea is getting smaller year by year,with weed encroaching,this allowing siltation to take place,I wonder how narrow and shallow the Lea can be before the fish disappear,there must be a limit. Back to the Avon and Stour,I've fished good swims and fed them all day(bait dropped every 1.5hrs,heavily)only to see one barbel in the swim at the death,if you were on the Trent you would keep on thinking they are there,it's strange,the tidal Stour is full of roach and dace,they regularly give wraps and hangs on boilies,pellets etc,but bream are becoming scarce,for whatever reason,used to catch them in virtually every swim,now its only two and then it's rare. Similar on the Ivel too,when I first fished the river lots of years ago it was full of bream,on the 'common' and back meadows at Biggleswade,with catches of up to 31 bream,you can now walk the river and not see one,the last twice I walked it before the season started I saw two,in the same swim,one around 8lbs,the other around 3lbs,surely they can't survive/spawn/thrive with so few...

 

[nottskev]

Kev,just to say the Avon hasn't the amount of fish to watch as it once did .............did you fish the Dove at all Kev,I believe you could see them there?

I wasn't meaning to suggest those rivers don't have their own share of problems or that the fishing is all idyllic (but I've fished both rivers and I'm not working from pics and videos), and I wouldn't say you have less chance of catching plenty of barbel, if you know where to fish, on my local river. I was thinking more of the beauty of the surroundings and the river itself, the relative accessibility and comfort of the banks, the opportunity to see into the swim you're fishing, and so on. If you're a fan of the A roads and B roads, it can all get a bit bleak on the often featureless, windswept expanses of my local river, which is very much a motorway, to keep up the road comparison.

Yes - I used to fish the Dove quite often, at a place called Scropton off the A50. When I first moved here, you could, once you'd found a pocket of fish, catch several barbel in the 6-8lb range in an evening, and it was great fishing. I gradually stopped going as, as with the Derwent nearer home, the fish got bigger but captures rarer and the ratio of waiting to catching unbearable if, like me, you like to get bites regularly. The last time I went on the Dove, in good summer conditions, two of us failed to catch a fish other than trout and grayling, a situation we later found mirrored on the lower Derwent, strangely enough. The stretch was given up by the controlling club, and taken over by another club, based 60 miles from my home, one where we'd be most unlikely to visit any of their other waters, so I don't have a ticket for the Dove these days.

 

[theartist]

I think the Ivel,like the Lea is getting smaller year by year,with weed encroaching,this allowing siltation to take place

Clubs and consortiums on the Lea are actually pumping clean the silt in places to encourage successful breeding. Whilst the Lea isn't naturally weedy the Ivel is but this isn't a bad thing as it really keeps the water levels up in summer

 

[theartist]

Barbel anglers going to the southern rivers for the scenery and perhaps the nostalgia is not too dissimilar to Redmire and carp angling perhaps? I suspect there's just as many if not more going the other way to the Trent now though, certainly many anglers I talk to are tripping up there for the chance of a big double.

 

[108831]

There are Rob,I know a few who go up every couple of weeks,mates of mine at Christchurch are members of a Bridgenorth club to fish for barbel on the Severn,others join Trent clubs,I find I slightly odd as barbel are still catchable around Christchurch,certainly to mid-doubles and when I'm down I catch an odd fish or two,which is better than I do back home most times....

 

[nottskev]

Barbel anglers going to the southern rivers for the scenery and perhaps the nostalgia is not too dissimilar to Redmire and carp angling perhaps? I suspect there's just as many if not more going the other way to the Trent now though, certainly many anglers I talk to are tripping up there for the chance of a big double.

I see what you're saying, but I'm not really inspired by the Redmire or Passion for angling stuff, or nostalgia or idealised depictions of fishing. I just sometimes wish I had something with that Hampshire/Dorset character to enjoy closer to home, whether I'd catch fewer, as many or more.

I'm sure that more results-driven anglers are heading up this way, and good luck to them. I meet some anglers who've travelled for hours and are booked in to stay overnight and so on. Just to explain myself: on my way to where I go barbel fishing - and I'm no barbel fanatic, its just one of the things I like - I go over a stretch of river 5 minutes from home, and drive 40 minutes or more further to other stretches of the same river. In the stretch 5 minutes away, huge barbel can be targeted and occasionally caught. But it's no beauty spot, the swims can be tackle-devouring snagpits, the gear required in some swims would land a tope, and your best chance of a bite is nocturnal carbelling. I'm happy to drive on and get to somewhere where I like the ambience and the way you fish.

 

[andylab]

Well what can I say!! following on from my pic a few days ago, and somebody who does not catch any notable fish, these two come out just below where pic was taken. Really gobsmacked trotting maggots 4lb line. . 6llb 8ozs few mins later 7lb 11oz.