Where were you fishing 30 years ago?

Hi All

Just a quick question... Ok this assumes a) you were born and cool.gif you were old enough to fish...

I've just posted an article on the Angling Lines Blog...

Makes me feel old
cheers
Gareth

Thirty Years Ago this Year… 1978-2008http://www.anglinglines.com/blog/thirty-years-ago-this-year-1978-2008/http://www.anglinglines.com/blog/thirty-years-ago-this-year-1978-2008/

tench fishing with my two boys at Green Lanes,Nazing

Roach fishing, hemp and tares on a crowquill avon on the Bristol Avon.

Magical times, 12 years old.

About 78-80 , me and my good mate Joe were fishing in the main for tench & bream in a big way , not big by todays standards , , I remember fishing at Larkfield in kent one summer day (Leisure Sport waters ) ,there was a tench match on but I couldn`t wait for the off and pulled out , carried on fishing and caught a 5lb tench which would have won the match if I had stayed in .

We did a bit of fishing on the River Kennet for barbel a few times with no great success , in the main we stayed on our local waters fishing for tench and bream and then strayed into carp fishing , 10ft split cane rods , heron alarms or monkey climbers were the kit of the day , the bivvy was a throwover the brollie type canvas , bloody heavy when wet and weight a ton , sun lounger which couldn`t take a lot , the springs were allways breaking .

Michal 300 reels and then 300 `s with 410 bale arms , baits were cat food boilies mixed with wheatabix , then later it was freelined baits the size of tangerines.

Jeans and wellies or bloody sea waders , both which froze your feet and a thick jumper under a combat jacket or if you were flash like I was , a tank suit which I bought from " The Exchange and Mart " A tank suit from WW2 , again bloody heavy with lots of zips and very tight under the crotch .

I may have got the dates mixed up a bit and missed loads out but all this stuff is coming back into my bonce at once , the fish where not huge but the banks were fairly empty and it was great fun , I would love to go back just for a few weeks .

Ha ha got any photos of you in the tank suit Les?

I use to fish Larkfields and johnson back in them days too Les

Hi Richard , no mate the camera wasn`t about then /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gifbut it used to make my eyes water ./forum/smilies/crying_smiley.gif

Johnson`s used to be a top tench water Cakey as you will know ,even before the 70`s , Mid Kent waters have it now , cracking waters mate .

yeah we used to carp fish it

You can get it on a separate ticket but used to be full of piss heads and druggies but I do think it is cleaned up now .

I fished it a few years ago and some one tried to nick our rods from a BOAT !

not been back since

I think thorpe park mob had it back in them days

Cycling down to the local canal with my trusty 6ft rod and my intrepid black prince reel using curly 10lb line (just in case I got a monster) and fishing worm and maggot under a massive porcupine quill which was nearly as big as the rod. I went for months and months before I eventually caught a perch.

1978.....29 years old?

Shell Fishery Stanford le Hope,Chelmer, Suffolk Stourand Blackwater.

frogmore on the LAA ticket

30 years ago I was well into my 30's, spendingmost weekends fishing for big bream and other big fish,and remembering the fishing 20 years before that/forum/smilies/confused_smiley.gif

In 1978 I was 29 years old, and still married to wife number 1, fishing mainly Old Bury Hill lake (in its' better days) the Thames, the Kennet and the Hampshire Avon. Other venues were the old gravel pits in and around Shepperton, and canals in the South and South east.

I didn't start my serious Carp fishing 'habit' until a couple of years later, so it was mostly Tench, Bream and Perch on the stillwaters but Roach, Dace, Chub and the odd Barbel on the rivers.

I had already been fishing on and off for around 20years but in 1977 my mate sold me a Richard Walker Mkiv Avon rod for a tenner and I had caught my 1st Barbel on the Kennet (5.5lb) which was the first of many and I thought it was a really huge fish (you always remember your first Barbel),



I had just left the RN (after 11 years)and joined a local club which had (& still has) a beautiful Estate lake which had some magical wildies in it plus some really nice Tench and Crucians plus the usual.
I had lived about 15 minutes bike ride away from the lake for 24 years before I even knew about the lake as it was a very secretive lake on private land that wasn't visible from any road,.
I used to have a couple of Heron Bite alarms which were designed by the great Richard Walker, and used to spend hours reading Gibbnson, Walker, Stone, etc.
Later I sent off for Rod Hutchinsons Carp book and I remember eagerly waiting for it to be released, and I also bought the Kevin Maddocks Carp Fever book when it was published.
My mate was working in electronics and between us we used to modify our Optonic bite alarms using telephone speakers and build extension boxes; even before they came out on the market, others were doing the same aswe regularly found public phones with their speakers missing.
We also used to make a lot of our rods using blanks bought from Going Bros in Southend and I used to use my home built Jim Gibbinsons Clooper Carp Rods for both Carp and Pike. We used to religously keep a logbooks with all our bait recipes using milk protiens etc. and we drew detailed maps of the lakes and swims that we fished but a 20lb'er was always just a dream.
I remember fishing the clubs matches were we had to put our fish in a canvas bucket and take them round to the bridge to get them weighed in. and we had minimum sizes that we had to adhere to; so if you had a netfull of small roach under 7 inches you could not weight them in.

in 1978 I was fishing local farm ponds with my mate, having the odd go in the suffolk stour at cavendish at my grannies house, and catching eels under the road bridge from the river blyth at Wenhaston. Happy days indeed!

its about time one of you lot done one of THESE