Grayling Blues

[Philip]

Not at all. That's a serve into the net. Send me one worth returning. And try to read the replies before you answer them. Without looking further than my window I gave you an example of how small amounts of previously private estate land have been bought, albeit in a leveraged way, and re-purposed for enormous public good. And nobody got their head chopped off or shot in a basement in Yekaterinburg. Do you disapprove of that kind of thing? Should we just continue, as we do, to subsidise the biggest landowners? I don't know - you just went on about your knock-down questionnaire.

Your simple notion of trespass is just that, simple. Would you be aware that, aside from whether swotty little 11yr old birdwatchers deserve to be terrorised by a Duke's armed goons for trying to see his (lol) woodpeckers, historic rights of access for the public (National Parks Legislation, Countryside Rights of Way Act) have stemmed from "trespass"? Try not to worry so much that I was an eleven year old trespasser, and try to see the bigger picture which the little story illustrates - the unreasonable exclusion of the public from huge swathes of the country in anachronistic ownership. It's not the same as people encroaching on the suburban garden, although I can see the issues trigger conservatives.

My views much simpler. You wandered onto private land as an 11 year old, got a bollocking & its got nothing to do with class or snobbery.

The only thing I have not seen in your veritable avalanche of words that would do a thesaurus proud is any indication that you could have been at fault in any way whatsoever.

...that’s rather ornery and arbitrary of you don’t you think ?

 

[nottskev]

My views much simpler. You wandered onto private land as an 11 year old, got a bollocking & its got nothing to do with class or snobbery.

The only thing I have not seen in your veritable avalanche of words that would do a thesaurus proud is any indication that you could have been at fault in any way whatsoever.

...that’s rather ornery and arbitrary of you don’t you think ?

And that's it? There's a stage in the individual's moral development, can't remember exactly but I think about age 8, when children obsess about rules, can't tolerate breaches and even police them by shopping miscreants to teachers and parents. Miss, Miss, he took my pencil. So yes. I was being very, very naughty to step off the path. Sorry, Duke.

By the way - would you pack in the "vast intellect", "avalanche of words" "thesaurus" schtick? If we all start to say what we think of each others' intellect and language, then we will fall out very quickly.

 

[Philip]

Well I could have used stubborn and unreasonable but I thought that would wind you up

Right I'm off to bed ...night Kev.

 

[John Aston]

bb

You still didn't answer my question so I will still assume you agree with me.

Ok. Here's what I think- one can find snobbery , and its kissing cousin, inverted snobbery in any branch of fishing , especially if one seeks it out . Being English still means - hilariously - that we can still judge others by the way they talk and dress. As that is part of society it is inevitable that fishing often becomes a microcosm of the world outside lakes and rivers .

Each type of fishing stimulates its own set of prejudices - so the guy on the Commercial bagging up on F1s thinks everyone who fishes the Test is a braying Jacob Rees Mogg toff , the session carper thinks both are w***ers wasting their time on nuisance fish and the guy on the Spey thinks coarse fisherman live down to their name . Or so it is temptingly easy to assume .

Except life is messy , complicated and nuanced . We can all make up a stereotype to tilt at , we can all find an accent to turn us into a self righteous class warrior with a chip on each shoulder, and we can all tune our senses to detect imagined slights to get cross about . But it isn't compulsory - we can all just give each other bit of slack , acknowledge our differences (in budget, dress, species and venue) and sort of rub along together in the love of a sport we share .

Passion for Angling was adorable , but it represented an alternative reality which only Chris Yates really knows. That bucolic paradise the programme portrays of a half imagined , lost England is as alien to my fishing as are monster carp programmes featuring grotesquely fat fish and bantering D list celebs .

I grew up in a mining village , a member of the only middle class family who lived there . My biggest influence was a retired miner who changed my life by teaching me to fish properly . One of my closest fishing friends came from a very posh Surrey family , and a very good mutual friend worked in a foundry . What I have learned is that , with an open mind, fishing has many facets , spans every social divide and although we all have preferences , it does not feature any one discipline inherently better than the others .

I have fished skanky canals in urban wastelands , paid £200 a day on a chalk stream and caught salmon on the fly , stickfloat fished for roach, stalked carp and fly fished tiny becks for wild trout . And it's all fishing - and it's only fishing .

 

[bullet]

What you don't seem to realise, Kev, is by wandering off the footpath as a Lad you were in danger of coming across His Lordships Goons setting up Pole traps and the like for Birds of Prey to ensure the smooth running of the shoot?

 

[nottskev]

What you don't seem to realise, Kev, is by wandering off the footpath as a Lad you were in danger of coming across His Lordships Goons setting up Pole traps and the like for Birds of Prey to ensure the smooth running of the shoot?

I'm coming to realise the event, perhaps even the Duke, were just perceptual errors stemming from my prejudices.

 

[nottskev]

I'm assuming, as we probably all do, that language both reflects and shapes thought. Nobody, for all the lessons in egalitarianism, has come out with any comments on what the "purist" approach to the "noble" art are about. Can anyone shed light on the "humble" maggot? Why the association between humility and fly larvae? Bait snobbery? Surely not!

 

[no-one in particular]

bbb

Ok. Here's what I think- one can find snobbery , and its kissing cousin, inverted snobbery in any branch of fishing , especially if one seeks it out . Being English still means - hilariously - that we can still judge others by the way they talk and dress. As that is part of society it is inevitable that fishing often becomes a microcosm of the world outside lakes and rivers .

Each type of fishing stimulates its own set of prejudices - so the guy on the Commercial bagging up on F1s thinks everyone who fishes the Test is a braying Jacob Rees Mogg toff , the session carper thinks both are w***ers wasting their time on nuisance fish and the guy on the Spey thinks coarse fisherman live down to their name . Or so it is temptingly easy to assume .

Except life is messy , complicated and nuanced . We can all make up a stereotype to tilt at , we can all find an accent to turn us into a self righteous class warrior with a chip on each shoulder, and we can all tune our senses to detect imagined slights to get cross about . But it isn't compulsory - we can all just give each other bit of slack , acknowledge our differences (in budget, dress, species and venue) and sort of rub along together in the love of a sport we share .

Passion for Angling was adorable , but it represented an alternative reality which only Chris Yates really knows. That bucolic paradise the programme portrays of a half imagined , lost England is as alien to my fishing as are monster carp programmes featuring grotesquely fat fish and bantering D list celebs .

I grew up in a mining village , a member of the only middle class family who lived there . My biggest influence was a retired miner who changed my life by teaching me to fish properly . One of my closest fishing friends came from a very posh Surrey family , and a very good mutual friend worked in a foundry . What I have learned is that , with an open mind, fishing has many facets , spans every social divide and although we all have preferences , it does not feature any one discipline inherently better than the others .

I have fished skanky canals in urban wastelands , paid £200 a day on a chalk stream and caught salmon on the fly , stickfloat fished for roach, stalked carp and fly fished tiny becks for wild trout . And it's all fishing - and it's only fishing .

We probably have more in common than you think, similar age and my father was a banker, I suppose you could call that middle class although he was completely classless, and we lived in a mining town for many years. I am well versed in the class and snobbery of this country however, thankyou for the lesson!
My question was "Why should I be excluded from all this" but I know the answers to that so I will change it "Should I be excluded from all this." maybe that is a better question.

 

[bullet]

But you weren't excluded, if you bought a ticket you could go.

 

[no-one in particular]

But you weren't excluded, if you bought a ticket you could go.

I think the prices would exclude many people.
Another question is what am I actually paying for, a beautiful place to fish in, I can get that for £10 or nothing, 6 trout, I can buy them in Waitrose. So what's left, fly fishing, I can do that for free and is it worth that much? I think what I am paying for is the chance to fish away from all the common people/anglers.

 

[John Aston]

It's obviously not for you , but there's really no need to dismiss a source of pleasure for other people . I pay peanuts for some of my fishing, and over £500 per annum for one club . The club isn't making a profit but rents, a deliberately low membership and the landowner's requirement for us to employ a keeper (stemming from 1846 !) all add to the cost . And although by far the most expensive fishing I've ever paid for, compared to many gold clubs and shoots, it's cheap . Sure , some can't afford it but so what ? I can't afford a Ferrari - or even a Range Rover - but that doesn't convert me into a raging class warrior. It is disingenuous to pretend the world works otherwise.

I've belonged to my club since 2003 and still love it as much as I did then . To fish for wonderful wild trout and grayling in gorgeous, unspoiled scenery is a privilege and I am lucky to be able to afford it . Membership spans the social spectrum but is limited in number - we don't want to destroy a very fragile environment by submitting it to greater angling and visitor pressure . I'm comfy with that. Don't like trout fishing , don't enjoy fly fishing ? Not for you - but allow me my choice please .

On the water you mention why do you assume it's some sort or conspiracy to exclude 'common people', whatever they are in 2022 ? If it's like every angling club I have belonged to , you simply apply for membership and join immediately , or after a wait , you pay the subs and enjoy the sport . Trout clubs can be pricier because of stocking cost and boat maintenance.

And if you want to buy your trout from Waitrose (Morrisons a bit downmarket ? ) then fill your boots .

 

[no-one in particular]

Nothing to do with class warrior, my politics is if it is good it is good, if it works it works or if it doesn't seem/feel right it probably isn't. Do we have the best model for angling/anglers possible, I don't think so. I could afford this fly club, now not in my past on a low wage school leaver or with some of the up and downs of my fortunes ,or your £500 club. Many would struggle to get into any of that kind of fishing. maybe your right, why should we all expect to drive a Ferrari but I don't think the people are seeing life like that these days. The world is changing under your feet and mine. You wouldn't want any change, I am not bothered really one way or the other, but I recognize it and wouldn't want fishing to stop evolving just to suit yourself or I.

 

[trotter2]

I fish, occasionally, the club stretches of the lower Frome. I've had a few (weighed accurately) fish over 2lbs to 2-10. Genuine 3lbers turn up on a long cycle of 7 - 10 years but are rare. The Frome monsters come from those who have secured fishing on hardly fished trout water nearer Dorchester and they're not hard to catch, no great skills needed.

One observation of grayling is that where they are fished for hard they can get cute due to their exceptional eyesight and need fine gear to fool them. I once fished for a shoal of a dozen (8oz to a pound) on the Hants. Avon; first five were easy (stick float and casters) but once those caught fish returned to the shoal the whole shoal became very discerning, easily spotting the bait with a hook attached, though a switch from an 18 to a 22 fooled them. That said their memories are short and that same shoal was probably easy a day later.

I agree with Marks comments anyone that thinks grayling are a walk over have a lot to learn.
There is always a few village idiots anyone can pull out, but like all fish they do learn and can in some cases be very tricky to catch in numbers. Many times I have watched grayling taking loose feed and totally rejecting the one with a hook with alarming efficiency. Being sight feeders they are quick on the feed and give the impression of being easy to hook but it's not the ones that come quickly to the net you want to worry about, its the ones that hang back and they take some catching at times.

 

[John Aston]

It never ceases to amuse me that some dismiss trout and grayling as being too easy to catch but see no irony in praising anglers for their skill in amassing large weights of other species . So it's stupidity on the fish's part to be caught as long as it has an adipose fin but skill on the angler's part if it lacks an adipose ? Hmm.

Grayling certainly don't spook easy on my usual venues - rain fed limestone streams- but some of the spookiest fish I've ever encountered were big grayling on a chalk stream . But hey ho, with looks like theirs, who cares if they are sometimes sub Mensa material ?

 

[Mark Wintle]

Many years ago the pool just above North Bridge on the Piddle had a decent depth - up to 4ft depending on the tide - and often held shoals of dace and roach plus brown trout, and in early Autumn it sometimes had a shoal of seatrout - it still does sometimes even if the dace and roach are long gone.

One day I fed maggots to a shoal of these seatrout, a dozen fish of 8oz to a pound and they took the maggots at breakneck speed yet a single maggot on a 20 hook was avoided every time. They were easily fooled with a bunch of four maggots on a 12 hard on the bottom.... I've had similar with big chub being hard to fool on fine gear with maggots/casters in clear water though their feeding has been much more ponderous, and again a switch to a big lump of bread on a big hook has fooled them.

As a roach angler I don't think big roach are hard to catch; maddenly frustrating at times when they're either not feeding or needing coaxing to feed, sometimes needing a trigger such as time of day or reduced light levels to get them going.

Mullet are cited as 'impossible' to catch but my roach feeding skills made them relatively easy as long as I figured out the tides. Landing them can be trying though....

 

[Philip]

Thats a whopper Mullet. Great catch !

Unbelivable fighters they just dig and dig. I always try and find the time to have a go for them each season. A great cross over fish for the freshwater angler to go for.

Its taken me a few years but I am just about starting to understand how to catch them with some sort of consistancy but they can be frustrating.