Why Only Coarse Fishing?

  • Thread starter Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)
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Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)

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As an angler who has taken Angling Times, on and off since 1953, I would like to ask the following question:

Why is it that there is no coverage of game or sea fishing anymore?

In the old days, Angling Times had sections covering all aspects of angling in the British Isles. I remember columns by such writers as Leslie Moncrieff and Clive Gammon on sea fishing, Bob Church and Arthur Oglesby on game fishing. And even **** Walker, all rounder that he was, wrote often on trout fishing.

These days game fishing has no national weekly press. There are a few monthly magazines of course but these can hardly be called newspapers in the normal sense.

People also tell me that game fishing is declining in the UK.

Maybe it's because of the lack of media coverage. It would be a very great shame if angling for game species with the fly is declining. I still find it the most exciting form of angling of all, and I've been doing it longer than I can remember.

Maybe Greg (Chub King) can tell us why AT does not cover game fishing anymore?
 
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colsmiff

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I have until recently, always considerd game fishing to be at the elitist end of the spectrum, more akin with the "Country Set" than the "Industrial North". In these more egalitarian times, I suspect many unenlightened anglers also hold this point of view.
Anyway Ron, it isn't just game/sea fishing that is being ignored by the Angling Press, it seems that any form of angling which does not involve commercials/pellet/ carp/pole or any combination of the above (sorry forgot about the barbel)is being put across as old-fashioned/elitist/non-populist.
 
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Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)

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Certainy game fishing was for years considered to be a bit elitist. And certainly if you want a day on the Test or a week on a top Scottish salmon beat it's going to cost you a bomb.

But generally, game fishing is cheaper than big carp fishing for example.

There was a time in England when reservoir fishing was extremely popular. In fact there were days in the early season at Grafham and Rutland when you couldn't even find a spot on the bank, let alone get a boat.

But I guess one of the things that caused the demise of the popularity of the big reservoirs was the end of the coarse fish close season on stillwaters. Not only that, the lack of spare time.

These days, the average man, or woman for that matter does not seem to have the leasure time they had 20 years ago.
 
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Chub King

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I guess Ron that it's where in the market our management sees its best sales are likely to come from.
Big carp have sometimes sat uncomfortably in the paper, hence it has its own pull-out section.
As for game and sea fishing, market research suggested that most of our readers were coarse anglers and that is where we are now focused. Other Emap titles cater for sea and game anglers.
I personally prefer monthly, feature-based specialist titles for a good read on the khazi!
 
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Matt Brown

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Ron, if AT was to re-instroduce Sea and Game fishing it would be much harder for them to please everyone.

Because I don't fly or sea fish I'm not interested in reading about it (at the moment). I'd prefer if they continue as they are.
 
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Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)

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What is interesting Greg is that your monthly: "Trout and Salmon" has the biggest sales of the lot in terms of a British angling magazine. It exceeds 60,000 pm - so I am told.

This is far more than some of the specialist carp mags, and I don't need to mention the names.

One would have thought that this circulation alone would fire the need for weekly news, in AT, on game fishing issues.

And certainly I am not getting at Emap. They, like any other publishing company, have to make money.

However it's interesting to raise these subjects as something might come of them.

Thanks for you comments Greg, they are appreciated.
 
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Peter Jacobs

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Ron,
I think that the argument is almost circular regarding Trout & Salmon magazine.

One of the main reasons the circulation is so high is that it is a monthly, eagerly awaited, publication.

The content of the monthly edition is largely a function of its' regularity.
If the same content were to be averaqged over 52 weekly issues then the quality, and informative nature, (without dreary repetition) is bound to decrease.

Personally I don't have time to read the weeklies at the moment as I am too busy searching for my long lost Kingfisher Guild Badge.

;-)
 
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Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)

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And I Peter, was also a proud member of the Angling Times Kingfisher Guild.

Most of you lot will not know what that meant. I used to display my Kingfisher Guild badge next to my ACA badge on my fishing jacket in the 50s.
 
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Les Clark

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Ron , If I remember right ,the "Kingfisher Guild " was a junior section of the A.T. ,who had caught specimen fish ?
 
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Matt Brown

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Ron, there are far more Carp magazines out there. I bet the number of total monthly Carp mags sold is 10 times the total number of Game mags sold.
 
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Bryan Baron 2

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Under your reasoning then why do we have all the Match information in AT when you have a dedicated Monthly mag on this subject. I like Ron am a angler who fishes in many diffrent ways. Yet all i see in AT these days is comercial fisheries. Anglers usually try other forms of angling when they have read a interesting article. This they will not do if its in a specialist mag a they don't buy it thinking there is nothing of intrest to them.
We all learn from one another. A new development in branch filters into another. So your main market is the comercial/match angler but small sections for sea and game would not go amiss and put others of reading the paper as i am sure we all dont read every page in its current form.
 
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Matt Brown

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Bryan, the difference with match angling mags is that almost all the stuff is relevant to coarse fishing.

Also, as a non-match angler I always read the match reports in AT so I have an idea of where is fishing well.

Because matches are weekly it makes sense that they go in the weekly papers.
 
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Bryan Baron 2

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As i fish the Ribble Matt and there are never any matches on there. The match reports have no significance to me.
There are also Sea Matches every week which never get reported in the weeklies buy the time they come out in the monthlies they are out of date with regards to relevance of the info.
 
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Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)

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Matt, I dont think any single British Carp magazine equals the circulation of Trout and Salmon. Maybe combined, all of the carp mags do but not on single issues.

Not only that but the readership of T&S is probably 3 times the figure I quote.

I would like to have this confirmed but the man who gave me these figures is one of Britains most hightly respected fly fishers.
 
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mark williams 4

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There's not much altruism in publishing these days - I'm not sure there ever was. Publications are given budgets to hit, and tough targets, so there's no room for any activity which doesn't involve making profit.

I suspect that's the reason the angling papers don't sponsor very much - they leave that to the tackle trade - and don't run properly-organised junior angling 'clubs' like the Guild and latterly the quaintly-named Rodbenders.

It's a shame. I personally believe the magazines and papers are best positioned to organise our angling youth, and provide them with education and incentive. And I'm sure the trade would back them, too.

But that strays off the subject. Why no sea or game? Not enough profit to share between T&S, TF, SA, etc.
 
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Matt Brown

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Bryan, that's fair enough. I've always been interested in other waters and like to get about a bit.
 
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Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)

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Mark,

I would have thought that an altruistic attitude by a publication, whilst not giving an immediate return, might well be an investment in terms of future increased sales.

Increased sales from more people who actually take up the sport too.
 
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Ric Elwin

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I read this thread with interest. I can't remember exactly when game and sea fishing dropped out of Angling Times. It's fairly recently though, my best guess would be 4-6 years.

What's interesting is that I remember, not many years before this, the paper conducted a poll amongst it's readers. This resulted in an INCREASE in sea coverage. How strange that this should be followed by it's removal.

Was there a big sway away from sea fishing towards carp fishing 5-10 years ago? I'm doubtful. I know Carping has grown but sea fishing, that's fairly steady, isn't it?
 
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Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)

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I can't remember exactly when Bob Church stopped his trout fishing column but it was about 6 years ago.
 
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Chris Bishop

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The weeklies aren't relevant to the average bloke on the bank any more.

That's why their circulations represent such a tiny minority of people who fish.
 
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