Where Did It Go? by J. Adams.

Too true John.
Where did the time go? I can think back over 30 years, in my early days of fishing. To be honest it sometimes frightens me, as to where the time between then and now went.
When everything is perfect, and you are sat there watching a float on a warm summers evening, these are some of the thoughts that go through my mind.

As for Buckingham Palace, I'm quietly biding my time.

hehehehe i like that.

i can just imagine baz nicking the queens card for breaking the rules.

It's frightening to think that Coarse Fisherman started 30 years ago. Graham supplied half the pictures by the look of it cos DH had no picture library. There were great white spaces in half of it.

Baz,

Off to the Tower with 'em if they break the rules; either that or set the corgis on them.

"Nostalgia isn?t what it used to be. How do we blot out all the crap times we?ve had and only remember the good bits, and then progressively embroider our memories of the good bits?"

I guess that is because our anticipation of future fishing trips is based on hope and hope is fuelled by the good experiences not by the bad. It is the same in golf - when I used to play, one good hole could obliterate a complete lousy round!

That's right John. I can remember one or two good days over the last 30 years, but the rest is a blank.(o

Mr. Adams,

I really enjoyed yet another superb article.

Seeing the old copy of the AT brought back many good memories, and to see the price "SIXPENCE" - ah for the good old days, in more ways than one!

Know what?

I think I am going to have to start to put together a colelction of old (and IMHO better) AT's just for the fun and the nostalgia?

Maybe that nice Mr. Wintle can start me off with a gift of all of his 'swapsies'

:-0]

Just how good was the fishing in the 60s?

Well for a start, where I lived, there was very little carp fishing. Foxon Dam in Sheffield did produce a 26lb mirror to local legend John Neville and just a few of us managed to catch carp to low doubles in a lake called Chapel Wheel Dam near Eckington.

Until I left the UK in 1967, my best carp weighed 9lbs 15 oz. Tag Barnes wouldn't give me the extra ounce - he weighed it.

Barbel fishing was better by comparison. We in the NSG caught hundreds of barbel in the Yorkshire Rivers in the 60s. Double figure fish however were virtually non-existant. The biggest taken by our group was 8lbs 1oz to Ray Webb. Tag Barnes had taken bigger fish but this was before the group was formed. My own biggest Yorks Barbel went 7lbs 1oz, which in the year it was taken was the biggest in Yorkshire.

Bream fishing was a laugh compared to now. 4 pounders were whoppers. It was Graham Marsden who set the angling world alight with his catches of big bream from the Cheshire Meres. My biggest bream was 71/2 lbs, but that was taken in Ireland.

Tench, again you wouldn't believe how hard it was to catch a 5 pounder, let alone a 6.

Frank Guttfield fished for years to get his first six pounder. And he was fishing probably the best two waters in England at the time.

5 pound tench were so hard in my area that we set off for Ireland to catch them.

One thing I will say is that we had plenty of quality roach fishing in those days. Not two pounders, but lots of fish in the 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 lb bracket. And some whopping great dace in a local river. 1 pounders were caught on a regular basis.

Pike fishing was much better. We caught lots of doubles and a fair few 20s from all sorts of waters.

Big perch were extremely rare. A 2 pounder was almost the fish of a lifetime. I was lucky in being able to catch several good fish up to 3lbs 6oz, but most of them were caught livebaiting for pike.

And it was the same with chub. To catch big chub we had to travel to the Upper Ouse or the Hants Avon. In all my years of fishing the Yorkshire rivers I remember only one 5 pound chub, caught by Tag Barnes.

So overall, is the fishing better today than in the 60s?

Of course it is.

Apparently, in the little village where I live now in the 1940's, rickets and consumption were as common as bills flying through your letter box now. No one had flush toilets and there were open sewers than ran towards ditches that ran into a stream which ran into Denton Reservoir. Everyone worked for either the local "Gentry" or on the Iron Stone and it was compulsory to attend church on Sundays. However, the village pub used to open at 5.30am in the morning so everyone could have a drink before they went off for their days labour. Hot mulled wine was a particular favourite apparently.

Being the age I am, I missed out on the various diseases although I did contract TB when I was a child. Sadness fills my soul that I missed out on the early morning drinking before work, joyous abound that I've practised after work drinking nearly all my working life, and misery that I still have to work like a dog in order to earn a few shillings to keep the wolf from the door.

Life is good, but time passes quickly. But if there "is" such a thing as reincarnation, please dear Lord let me come back as a brassiere.

Regards,

Lee.