''Claiming credit''

Derek Gibson

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In fishing terms this could relate to the development of a method, bait or item of tackle. But how many of those claims are legitimate. From my standpoint many of those claims are orchestrated by individuals driven by the desire to become ''Famous''. Or grab the attention of a sponsor, but that's my opinion, what's yours?
 

Peter Jacobs

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My opinion would coincide with yours Derek.

I mean, how can anyone, for example claim to have "invented" Sweet Corn as a bait, regardless of which country it may have happened in, or what it may have been called . . . . . ?

Another classic example has to be whoever claimed the "design" of the Bolt Rig for what was basically just using a weight that was far to heavy really for the conditions which, by chance, turned out to be a "self-hooking" rig?

I would agree with you, many of these "designers" are/were just out to make a name for themselves.
 

wanderer

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Dont know Derek, we all have little things we have picked up over the years that could be of use to someone else, i usually explain what works for me, candles as bolts for surface fishing and some aspects of the method feeder, plasticine insted of lead in the snags, semi bouyant feeder rigs, prebait regimes, advice if people want it, i personally would hate to be famous being a very shy bloke, but i want to help people who have problems and may be too shy to ask, maybe they are the same.
 

wanderer

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Its easy when there is no contact, i am very shy, i work alone, have done for decades, mainly fish alone although i have some good fishing buddies, thats me, cant help it, wish it werent, thanks for liking my stuff, i know quite a bit, most of it not worth knowing but i like to keep people interested with something different to talk about, hopefully without causing offence.
 

thecrow

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I am in full agreement with you Derek, the hair rig is an example along with the bolt rig which you mention. Method feeder was not new as anglers have been moulding ground bait round a lead for many years prior to it being popularised here in this country, an ex member would possibly have confirmed that "mealie paste" has been used in this way in South Africa for many years.

Another exasperating example is known anglers with no technical qualifications claiming to have designed a range of rods, its just a marketing ploy that unfortunately must work as it has been done over and over, it also serves to keep an angler in the anglers eye.

Slightly of tack is the claiming of invented records, one that comes to mind from years ago was "the biggest catfish caught in Russia by an English angler" it smacks of an angler just using any method to keep themselves in the angling eye.

Other than technical improvements in tackle and bait I believe that very little if anything is new as angling has been around far to long and practiced by to many for anything to be remotely new.
 

wanderer

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Wise words about tackle developements Mr Crow, braid has gone full circle from the days of Richard Walker, once dismissed as string by the mono brigade and returned to as hooklengths by the specy crew decades later, method feeder, the old timers, freelined big balls of groundbait squeezed around the hookbait, inventing records, how about stocking lakes with over fed over hybridised fish, Dever springs in the trout world, countless examples with carp, true records our engineered , i leave that to the judgement of the individual, there are 200 Acre pits in East Anglia, captures from these lakes commands respect, stocking level 7 to an acre, if they can produce on a regular basis, Dave Lane and Jim Shelley spring to mind, then you deserve your fame.
 

bennygesserit

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watching a TV series the other day it seems that Matt Hayes invented the "time Bomb" which appears to be pellet feeder for Barbel.
 

Kevin aka Aethelbald

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Who cares?

Jealous rivals, people with chips on their shoulders, or the owners of patents and intellectual property (in which case there is the law).

If you don't fall into any of those categories I don't see why these things should bother you.

PS. If anyone would like to 'claim credit' for expertise on which trotting rod I should buy for the Arrow, I'd be only too pleased to read you on that thread. :D
 
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rayner

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I always work with the idea there's nothing new in angling, there are ways of doing things a bit different but they are still based around the same ideas.
I still use the same shallow rigs that I used in the 60s, I have change them slightly but they still work with the same principal.
It seems to me that tackle produces keep telling of the must have tackle but no one has told the Roach.
I'm too tight to fall for new ideas. They get no credit from me.
There are the odd few things that I haven't heard of but one that I do use is the so called new idea that is the slow sinking bomb that I have a liking to, even that has been done before in a slightly different way.
it's just a variation of fishing on the drop, an old tactic that still works as good as ever.
 

wanderer

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They dont mate, i recognise those with superior knowledge, it will always be that way, learn from these guys, modify your own tactics, i look and learn, only a fool thinks he has the key, listen and learn, Terry Hearn knows more than me, i have been fishing before his father was around, but as carp fishing goes, i listen.
 

Keith M

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The hair rig was described in Waltons book 'The Compleat Angler' although he didn't call it a hair rig in his book; and it is thought that he cribbed a lot of his book from Dame Juliana Berners book 'The Boke of St Albans' written centuries before.

We have been using buoyant baits suspended off the bottom for centuries but someone decided to call it a Zig-Rig as if it was a totally new invention (which it wasn't of course).

I don't think that there's many things that can be deemed completely new in fishing other than new materials and improved designs. Yes a method or way of fishing can be re-vitalised and improved by someone; and I don't see why they can't take the credit for that; but I think that few things can truly be deemed as being completely new in angling.
I think that someone somewhere has usually done it before unless it totally relies on a newly developed technology.

Keith
 
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flightliner

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watching a TV series the other day it seems that Matt Hayes invented the "time Bomb" which appears to be pellet feeder for Barbel.
Benny, I was reading thro this thread intending to mention the "bait bomb" it was old hat at least a decade before it was invented, anglers were filling feeders with pellets for barbel on the Trent eons before. find an old copy of the sheffield based Angling Star and you will find it all in there,!
Prior to that it was maggots, waspgrub, even plain brown crumb if you were using "pudding" (groundbait paste) as a hookbait in the fens for bream.
Stickfloats were another, back in the late fifties porcupine quills had their thick pointed ends cut off and rounded with sandpaper and used by south yorkshire matchmen on the trent before they were named as such, I still have a couple in my floatbox today after all this time and they are as good as any.
Its all been done before, nothing new, only new "chancers"
 

Ray Daywalker Clarke

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I also agree with Derek.

I have to laugh sometimes when people say they Invented something for fishing, most of it has been around for many years.


As the saying goes, what goes around comes around.

It's not just in angling, fashion is another, and Vinyl records are even making a come back, along with the good old turn table.
 

flightliner

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Read one of the old "Trent otters" books and he mentions the "men of Gainsboro" using steak as bait for chub years before even he fished the river.
 

Derek Gibson

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Read one of the old "Trent otters" books and he mentions the "men of Gainsboro" using steak as bait for chub years before even he fished the river.

From the same source Mick, JW Martin.

The sliding float credited to George Holland, developed in the mid 1800s.

The bait dropper, Tom Sunman 1860s.

Yes very innovative those old Trent anglers. Necessity being the Mother of invention.
 

Bob Hornegold

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Derek

Nothing is new in fishing, it goes round in circles, there are of course updates and new materials.

But this need of some people to put their name to something is just a symptom of modern times, the need for celebrity ?

I don't get, but I'm getting old and from a different era.

Mr. R Walker was a free thinker and as an engineer developed many ideas, but that's what all engineers do, don't they ?

It's just that it was fishing he was interested in, he certainly designed other things from lawn Mowers to Aircraft !!

Bob
 

flightliner

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And lets be honest here, many thousands of anglers in their formative stages have, while studying the art and the many problems they have to overcome have used many a solution
Of their own without knowing it, or something very similar as been used, practiced, written of for years, only to find out much later.
Most in doing so simply accept the fact but maybe a tiny few think they have had a eureka moment.
 
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