Angling Times

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Angling Times has deteriorated over recent months? I buy both weeklies (plus TCF every month) and yesterday I put AT down (in the bin actually) 15 minutes after I had picked it up. I'm not a great match fan, although I do enjoy my friendly club comps, so page after page of match results don't hold my interest. Nor, sadly, does the huge number of photos of people showing their catches.

It seems to have become very match and commercial fishery orientated and I really don't want to continue to read about how to cut up chunks of luncheon meat into quarter inch cubes for match carp and F1s. Or yet another article on how to mix paste, soak pellets or fishfor pastie sized carp.

AT used to be about general fishing with something for everyone. Now it appears the emphasis has shifted to carp, commercials and matches. Sure, there are other items in the paper but the balance has gone.

Is it me, or have others noticed?

yes i agree phil its not as good as it was page after page of match stats and people with small fish and ringer doing the same thing he did the week before but with something else cut into cubes.i guess it doesnt cost as much to make it when half the papers full of rubbish and most of the rest is advertising.

The supplement they have been doing each month is well worth reading. Although it is Carp tactics, I adapt/ scale them down them for other types of fishing with GOOD results.

Dont like Steve Ringer, don't like Danny Fairbrass, but it is with their baits and their tactics that have worked for me. What can I say??? pass the humble pie.

I'm afraid it's you Phil and Nige because Angling Times' sales have sky rocketed since its re-launch in May. You can't keep everyone happy butthe paperappears to be getting the thumbs up from more anglers than last season.

I can quite believe that Geg, I suppose any editors job it to max circulation and looks like you have done that by appealing to the masses.

You were never going to sell more copies by targeting specialist etc.

Unfortunately the masses seem to be into puddle fishing these days so whilst the quality, what was left of it, has gone from my point of view, your average chav angler will love it.

Not good for the future of angling I dont think.

That's fair comment Greg and possibly reflects the way modern angling trends are going ie commercial carp fisheries rule the roost and people want to catch as many as possible - and need to be shown how. Fair play, but it does seem to have upset the broad brush approach the paper used to have.

Still, at the end of the day, the paper is a commercial venture and must sell copies to survive and, if that means narrowing the vista, so be it. Sadly though, the current content and format are not for me.

I shall draw the editor's attention to your comments gents. Meanwhile I'm off barbel fishing!

The weeklies died for me ages ago , I have bought both the Times and Mail a couple of times this season and they leave me very disappointed , we hear the rivers are making a comeback yet neither paper seems to wanna give any coverage , even the venuereports are full of commercial places , the free gifts dont enthuse any confidence either , the usual disgorger or plastic rod rest top , and thepic sent in to get badges have some very dubiousweights on them, I've been flitting between various monthlies, mrs wants to get me subscription to one but I cant decide what to have , faves are Coarse Fisherman , Total Carp and Carp World . Wont go near IYCF or any of the other similar types as every couple of months articules are rehashed , even noticed that some of the readers questions are repeated nearly word for word and thats in others too and what grates more is they even award the prize again .

If sales are through the roof then they are obviously givng someone what they want but not even coming close for me !!!!!

Tight lines Greg. Bet you didn't learn to barbel fish from Steve Ringer.

I think AT has improved since the relaunch. There are more general articles on fishing, and the photo gallery of average anglers with their catches is a nice innovation. Des Taylor is readable and often controversial. The down side is thatAT still printsrepetitive articles about technique and tacklefor catching small carp from overstocked waters - surelyAT has reached the point where there's nothing more to say about the subject of commercial fisheries?

You are just SO right Keith. As I have indicated, there are other areas covered by AT but it's the balance that's the problem, and that's a personal observation on my part and not a criticism aimed at those who want to catch shed loads of match carp.

The fact is, commercial fisheries form PART of the coarse angling picture, but the proportion of copy addressed to this aspect is disproportional and many (an increasing number by all accounts) anglers are switched off by overstocked carp fisheries.

For many years i got Angling times and anglers mail every week. But i ended up getting a bit bored with them . Only reading parts of the mags as pole or match are not my thing. Instead what i do now with the money i save is to buy a fishing book But i will say they do have there good use, if you want to know where the fish are coming from look at the match results or if you like to know what new tackle is coming out or a new method or bait

i got rid of AM as it was getting bad Ian Welch fishing the same venues over and over plus most of the reviews were match gear.Yes i would like to see a more balanced AT with a better where to fish section if possible and a weekly river review .

They should rename the Angling Times to 'The Puddle Chuckers Weekly' so that its name reflects its contents more accurately. /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

No publication is going to appeal to everyone and AT is no different.Personally I gave up reading AT or AM for that matter as neither gave me what I wanted in a weekly read.If I am honest I think both publications gave up on me as a grew older and less likely to take on board what they had to offer either by article or technical advancement.

I suppose I have settled into a frame of mind where I like to use my brain(and experience)to give myself every opportunity to catch fish by adapting to the prevailing conditions and if I need a weekly rag to still tell me that then I have not learnt much in 55years of fishing!

Don't get me wrong,I still like to keep in touch with sensible advancements in tackle and use them if I think them worthwhile.For this I use this excellent website to ask questions and get a range of answers that help me way beyond any newspaper.Sometimes I realise I have slipped behind with new fishing lines,rods etc but none of these will help me catch more fish(I hope)!!

The last publication I enjoyed was the early years of Waterlog but even this became boring when it introduced more and more fishing stories from abroad.

Perhaps the modern offering of newspapers are very good for beginners/match anglers and those who like to see pics of man & fish for which they do a great job,even ifit represents a somewhatclouded view of what fishing is all about....................in my opinion!

I got some great pointers from Bob Roberts during a session with him and his partner in crime Stu Walkeron the River Dove for an Angling Times feature highlighting what they'd learnt while filming a new DVD on barbel fishing which included a lot of underwater footage.

The pair helped me catch a new 11-9 pb on the day. I then took what I'd learnt and applied it on the Nene to catchnew pbs of12-7 and 14-4. You too would have picked up on these invaluable tips Philif you'd read that issue of AT. But it might have got lost amongst the plethora of commercial carp articles!/forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Other features I'll be writinginclude diverse subject matters such as Guernsey bass and wrasse fishing, rod building, how centrepins are built, and kayaking for bass on the south coast, amongst others.I can assure you I shan't be writing anything about commercial carp because I usually blank on commercials! It must be because I feel sorry for all those over-pressuredpasties!/forum/smilies/surprised_smiley.gif

Bit of a generalisation to say that AM is all about commercial waters and match tackle, during the years that I've written a weekly column in it i can't ever remember writing about fishing a commercial water (basically i don't fish them) and probably a good 50 per cent of what i write about my own fishing is on rivers.
There is no way of keeping everyone happy with 100 per cent of the content of a magazine, there will always be some bits that you don't like/don't interest you.

I haven't taken the Times for several seasons now. I stopped buying it because it seemed rather thin on my kind of reading and rather short of content generally. However a couple of years further on I've found myself less and less enamoured by the written angling media generally, and I've come around to the idea that maybe it isn't the publications that have become less readable, but rather me that has become a bit jaded.

A typical example of where I think my personaltaste is less than catered for is in this months Coarse Fisherman. There's an article in there about how to pop-up dead-baits for pike. Over the years there must have been literally hundreds of such articles in there, in fact I've penned one myself in the past. Does it appeal to me as a reader? Well nonot really. I feel I've got the method sorted.Is it repetition? Of course it is, but that's in no way detrimental to the quality of the mag because there are always going to be new readers, or anglers,that will gain from such material.A magazine or paper's raison d'etre is surely primarily to inform people about methods and tactics that will put fish on the bank? That being the case it would be little short of irresponsible for the mags not to publish such articles.

I think the same is probable true of AT. They have to cater for the current angling zeitgeist, and today's novices, as well as the up and running anglers.

I am pleased to hear that the paper is still attracting newcomers. To me AT is an intrinsic part of angling's heritage, and it is my fervent hope that long may it continue.

....Besides, it's always had the drop on the Mail for my money, and is without doubt a far better quality read. /forum/smilies/sarcastic_smiley.gif

<blockquote class="quoteheader">Chris Hammond ( SAA, RSPB ACA) wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class="quote">

....... I've come around to the idea that maybe it isn't the publications that have become less readable, but rather me that has become a bit jaded.</blockquote>


I've said more or less the same thing for some time Chris. Perhaps not so much jaded as 'experienced'.

It isn't that either weeklies, or any of the monthlies, are writing less interesting stuff, just that they are not catering for anglers of long experience. To interest the latter type of angler the material has got to be more deep and meaningful, for wants of a better way of putting it, but the truth is that too much of that doesn't sell copies, for the majority of readers are the much less experienced who appreciate the more basic stuff. And it's a fact, whether we like it or not, that most of those are fishing commercials. Angling newspapers and magazines are businesses, and businesses have to maximise profits, and the only way they can do that is to sell more copies.

Don't you think they would fill them with advanced angling stuff if that was the path to selling more copies and making more profit?

I'm not much for this 'habit' of the more experienced angler calling them rags either. That they don't cater generously for the more experienced angler doesn't make them a 'rag'. It just means that you are not part of the majority target audience.

I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, but I'm damn sure that both weeklies, and the monthlies, are open to any suggestion that will make their publications sell more. And it isn't a simple case of publishing more pages so that more advanced stuff can be published as well as the basic stuff, for that would mean a rise in cover price or selling more advertising space (which is one hell of job in the current climate), and that in turn would lose more readers.

Before you criticise them any more, unless it's constructive criticism, put yourself in the editor's shoes and ask yourself how you would do it differently and still make a profit.

I have to agree the AT is rubbish, I get it every week and it is a total waste of £1.60, which I could be spending on any number of high-class accessories.

This week it had a story about an eleven year boy catching his first barbel which happened to be 15lb 2oz, I ask you! The new owner of makins, boring! Keith Arthur chewing his gums about what's wrong with angling? Some bloke catching a specimen bream, and the tidal Trent barbel, wow! A load of stuff about Shakespeare tackle, probably an advert! Readers letters, who cares what they think? Steve Ringer followed by Martin Bowler, celebrities! And that's only the half of it, need I go on? I suppose it will be just as bad when I get it next week, will I never learn?

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