We've never had it as good

I've just finished looking through a binder full of anglers mails from 1980.
They were given to me by an elderly man who was clearing out some draws.
Fish that were making big headlines were 6lb tench 9lb bream and 2.5lb perch. There were some beauties caught that would be big fish by today's standards, like a 3lb rudd, a few 4lb+ perch and Chris Yates 51lb carp, which incidently wasn't accepted as the new record.
Rods looked expensive and poor, with the top big fish prize being a 12ft Daiwa Harrier worth ?135!. The mitchell reels looked by far the best of the era, with some under ?10.
The mag itself is of poor quality with as much sea and fly fishing making up the text as coarse fishing.
People shouldn't knock todays angling weeklies because they are 10 times better than in 1980.
The price back then was 25p.

i beg to disagree with your comment that the weeklies are ten times better than they were years ago.as you said,they contained as much sea fishing and fly fishing as they did coarse fishing.these days they seem to be full of carp and barbel,along with a few other coarse fishing items and match fishing.the sea and fly content is virtually non existent.i do quite a bit of sea fishing at most times of the year,i fish mainly for pike come winter and enjoy the occasional session after other species of coarse fish,along with a bit of fly fishing.i rarely carp fish and don`t fish for barbel as there are none locally.
perhaps it would be better to rename them coarse angling times and coarse anglers mail.
i totally agree with the statement that todays quality tackle is a lot cheaper and easier to obtain and with a lot more choice.
i also agree that bigger fish seem more widespread.
3 years ago,i decided to concentrate on tench fishing through the summer,i managed to catch 16 fish over 6lbs up to a top weight of 8lbs,back in the 80`s they would all have made headlines in the angling press,these days,although cracking fish,they pale into insignificance compared to the double figured specimens that often grace the pages of mags.pike fishing has also improved due to clubs etc having a more enlightened view to them in the main.
as a keen sea angler,i find that the opposite is true regarding big fish,yes there are still some fine fish to be caught and measures are starting to be put in place to protect bass etc,but cod,ling,coalfish etc are getting scarcer by the year and smaller as well.the red bream is virtually non existent and the black bream are only just starting to reappear in numbers.

Yes you are right in stating that game and sea fishing all but don't exist in the weeklies.
I was refering to the coarse fishing and tackle when i said we've never had it as good.
can you imagine 15lb carp or a 7lb bream hogging the main pages now ?Or having to make your own floats.
As for sea fishermen, both shore and boat i feel sorry for you. Our seas have been raped untill they are almosr bare. The cormorant has had to come inland to feed and goodness knows what other damage we have done to the eco system.
They say nature always fights back. Lets hope it does sooner rather than later.

i totally agree mate!
that`s the reason i started doing more coarse fishing a few years back.previous to that i concentrated on pike in the winter and beach and boat fishing all year round.
i remember back in 1989,we were wrecking off guernsey(used to have a week ,sometimes two, fishing holiday there every year)the skipper used to fish several wrecks per day,so as not to hammer any one wreck,we fished two wrecks one morning and caught some nice pollack and ling,when we got to the third wreck,which was stuffed with big cod,we saw a french wreck netter shooting its net over the wreck,we found out later that week that the net stayed down for one whole day,when it was hauled,it contained no less than 6.5 tons of cod!!!!!and the boat took 60 odd tons of fish from various wrecks in the area that week.needless to say those wrecks were soon finished,as were many others in the channel.
it got so bad,that many of the netters went bankrupt(hurray!)the one and only plus side of all the cod and ling getting caught was the fact that pouting got to plague proportions on the wrecks and the congers that fed on them got huge,i caught my pb of 92lbs in 1991 from the same wreck that was netted and the biggest boated was 108lbs.
the cod,ling and pollack catches are just starting to improve,hopefully they won`t get raped again,but i have my doubts!
we also have the scallop dredgers ruining the seabed in lyme bay and spoiling the reef fishing.and the authorities want to introduce a rod licence for sea anglers!if they stopped all commercial fishing within 20 miles of the coast,maybe i`d be prepared to buy one,as it is,i feel that it`s just another tax!
see the thread about trout pellets,you`ll see how much fish gets wasted to feed farmed fish!
ps,i remember when the tench record was just over 7lbs!