How Much Has Fishing Changed in the Last 20 Years.

I know a lot of technologies in Fishing have changed in the last 20 years, and that some things have got cheaper.

What i was really wondering is, how much has fishing changed itself, in the last 20 years ?

Simple answer - it hasn't, fishing doesn't change, the tackle changes but the fish are just as elusive as they ever were. Carp fisheries are more plentiful as are carp match fisheries thats about all.

Ditto.............

So the introduction of Commercial fisheries hasn't changed fishing in anyway ?

Should the question be, how we approach fishing ?

carp bream tench barbel have got bigger

What about Hair Rigs, and Method fishing have they helped to change fishing ?

---------- Post added at 16:25 ---------- Previous post was at 16:25 ----------

And then their are Bait Boats

Stealph Viper said:

What about Hair Rigs, and Method fishing have they helped to change fishing ?

Click to expand...

And what about the internet, spreading ideas and know how?

I think the emergance of the commercial type fishery has made the sport even more accessable and user friendly for everyone.

What do you class as a commercial fishery?
We have always had day ticket waters, are these not comercial?
20 years ago newly dug ponds tended to be for trout and stocked with rainbows, now its carp. Also the match scene has dwindled and not just on rivers.
We have new technology and techniques, hair rigs and bolt rigs then the provousion of pellets and bollies, flavours galour and additives such as amino etc.
We now have more overnighters, be it only for the excuse to get away from the missues or to get drunk.
In the last 20 years we have better river quality and more rivers to fish. More people are fishing rivers, if only for barbel.

In my opinion fishing has changed out of all recognition over my lifetime. I stopped fishing temporarily around 1976 or so. I cant be more exact than that. I started again around 2001 - 2, which is around the time I started posting on here. I had a different name then, and I have been through 3 email addresses since. Finding FM was, as SV said in another current thread, a godsend for me. I learned such a massive amount in such a short time! I knew nothing of carp fishing, or boilies, or pellets, or carbon fibre rods, or even smooth running fixed spool reels. All I knew was breadcrumb groundbait, maggots and worms, and fibreglass or split cane rods. I have yet to knowingly meet a single member of FM as pressure of work completely prevents me from attending any fish-ins. I have to work like the very devil to make fishing time: such is the life of a design & technology teacher these days.

I was always an avid reader and when I was young I read **** Walker and Fred J Taylor et al. But being young, hard up with a pregnant wife, I simply could not spend any money on fishing. When I was at school my poor overworked mother provided basic tackle and bait, somehow, and I was able to join a local club as a junior member, with excellent waters on the upper severn.

One thing that has made a massive contribution to my fishing experience was getting a driving licence and a car - neither of which I had at the time I gave up.
We have all [or most of us] become richer so many of us. including me, have a vanload of tackle. I used to have one rod, and that was that.

To cut a long story short, fishing has changed in direct proportion to the changes in everyday life. That will be the case even since 1989, ie 20 years ago. Virtually one-species commercial fisheries have only become viable because of increased mobility, and the explosion in tackle and baits follow from more dosh.

No matter where you are or what you are fishing for the basics remain unchanged ,you can make it as complicated as you wish but getting a fish to take a baited hook is in essence the name of the game be it with a 3m whip or 3 rods on a pod.

One of the biggest changes I've seen in river fishing is the inability of the vast magority of under 40s to be able to fish a river with a float.
I stood on Wenesday watching one guy faffing about trying to fish with a float rod. He had me in stiches laughing at his attempts. seemed to spend more time undoing tanggles, constantly casting and feeding balls of groundbait. And he was fishing in one of the best raoch swims on the length in near prefect conditions for them.
When I enquired had he caught anything? His answer was, he hadn't had a bite!

Interestingly, his maggot box was still full of maggots at 3 45 pm when I spoke to him. Apparently he'd been there all day!

Perhaps I should give him credit for trying, most wouldn't even know where to start!

I am one of them guys who has never fished a river using a float.

I wouldn't know how too, i wouldn't know where to start.

River fishing is becoming a dying art.

I have to agree with TBO in this case, float fishing skills have deteriorated a lot over the last 20yrs......there are still some superbly skilled young float anglers out there but there used to be lots more decent float anglers about.

Anyone who would like to learn about river fishing with a float could do worse than get to the FM Idle "do"

The biggest change in my opinion is the availability of some wonderful tackle right across the board and at prices that are far cheaper in real terms.

I think that Carp fishing is one of the biggest changes in fishing terms, a lot of Anglers coming in to Carp Fishing have never Float fished, or Feeder Fished or Pole Fished or fished a River or a Canal, they are a whole new breed of Angler.

I agree that rivers are not getting large numbers of anglers and that is a crying shame and it grieves me that living where I do I have to travel miles to get on a decent river,however the rivers are still there albeit in some cases shadows of their former glory the reservoirs and gravel pits all there for fishing but the trend is to take the easy option of modern commercials along with the benefits ie shop safe parking no walking miles, I do not have anything against that it is a matter of choice and that leads me to the point that it is anglers that have changed the fishing is still there as it was years ago

pike tackle is sooooooo much better these days

On the rivers it's much easier to get the best swims whereas 20 or more years ago you had to get up early, and even then all the swims would eventually be taken.

I miss the great dace fishing of the past; I still catch more than a few with some decent ones but have yet to get big catches on most waters that formerly held them. I still miss the big river roach - sure I get the odd one but nothing like I've had the privilege of catching before. When I finally figure out how to catch them maybe the perch will fill the gap?

Barbel fishing has changed out of all recognition; much bigger fish and far fewer of them, even if they are more widely distributed. Fishing for shoal barbel is hard to find.

Far greater choice of gear in almost all disciplines although good stick floats are hard to find nowadays in the shops - not that I'm bothered because I've got the ones I want. Match rods have lost their 'crispness'.

Fishing has changed unbelievably,venues,river stretches have changed some several times,with techniques changing with them,some are almost fishless,canal waggler fishing is virtually no more,in fact poles have taken a lot of the old skills out of angling,including one of the most important,feeding.Twenty years ago very few people used over 8lb line for barbel,or braid hooklinks(or mainline)or rods over 1.5lb t.c..The most fished for coarse fish was the roach(not the carp)and there were a lot more fish in most rivers than there are now,these are just a few changes,anybody who feels there's been no change must have been in a coma for 20 years.

It's a bit more than 20 years. It started with Walker introducing scientific thought into angling in the 50s. Then wealth played a bit part in the 60s - people got their own cars to go fishing in, instead of catching club-outing coaches, and so destroyed a social aspect of angling that has only recently returned with advent of the internet and sites like FM. Fly fishing for trout became available to all common anglers with the creation of stillwater trout reservoirs in the 70's. Specimen fishing took off in the late 70s and carp fishing became a separate discipline

The bullsh*t factor from the various water authorities hasn't changed though. They still tell me every year that the Thames is cleaner than it's ever been and that we 'now have salmon running up the Thames again'. I first read that in the early 60s, it was nonsense then and is nonsense now.