A few years ago, if the carp and barbel record went on the same weekend it would be incredible news.
Now it barely merits a posting on a forum like this.
I am not taking anything away from the captors of Two Tone and The Traveller. I am sure they both put lots of effort into their captures and they can feel justly rewarded.
But this is getting a bit silly.
The same fish are just being repeatedly caught. How many times must Two Tone have been caught now? 100? More?
How many times has the average 5lb carp in a commercial fishery been caught? Nobody has a clue but I bet it is hundreds.
I cannot find a way out of this, but I am just feeling a little uneasy with the way our sport is going. We keep hearing that angling is a sport with falling numbers. Well, if that is true, then the number that still fish are plundering a small pool of fish - basically carp and barbel, in the majority of cases.
If you had told me 20 years ago that it would get like this, I would have thought you were exagerating - it is like some Orwellian Angling nightware!
Big carp dedicating their lives to avoiding rigs, being moved from water to water and being caught hundreds of times.
Small carp deformed and bait-dependant - virtually accepting being caught as a hazard of not starving.
Barbel changing their behaviour entirely to avoid the myriad hair-rigged pellets which assault them everywhere.
Riverbanks covered in litter.
Bivvy's with piles of beercans outside and cannabis smoke drifting out.
Whatever happened to fishing?
Now it barely merits a posting on a forum like this.
I am not taking anything away from the captors of Two Tone and The Traveller. I am sure they both put lots of effort into their captures and they can feel justly rewarded.
But this is getting a bit silly.
The same fish are just being repeatedly caught. How many times must Two Tone have been caught now? 100? More?
How many times has the average 5lb carp in a commercial fishery been caught? Nobody has a clue but I bet it is hundreds.
I cannot find a way out of this, but I am just feeling a little uneasy with the way our sport is going. We keep hearing that angling is a sport with falling numbers. Well, if that is true, then the number that still fish are plundering a small pool of fish - basically carp and barbel, in the majority of cases.
If you had told me 20 years ago that it would get like this, I would have thought you were exagerating - it is like some Orwellian Angling nightware!
Big carp dedicating their lives to avoiding rigs, being moved from water to water and being caught hundreds of times.
Small carp deformed and bait-dependant - virtually accepting being caught as a hazard of not starving.
Barbel changing their behaviour entirely to avoid the myriad hair-rigged pellets which assault them everywhere.
Riverbanks covered in litter.
Bivvy's with piles of beercans outside and cannabis smoke drifting out.
Whatever happened to fishing?