As a boy, i fished for whatever i could get. And was happy with that. I stopped fishing for a long time and have only just taken up the battle again, and can tell you, from my own perspective, why i have returned to the sport again, and found myself a carp angler! I stopped angling because i had a series of nasty foul hooks, and at the time there were no such things as unhooking mats or klinik! Perhaps more than anything else these at least ease my conscience. Beyond that however, I have found the attitude towards both fish and environmental wellfare rather more pronounced in the carp anglers than in most other branches of the sport i both remember and have since witnessed. I have also found that carp fishermen seem to spend a lot more time thinking about both the behaviour and habitat of their quarry! On a personal note, agonising over lead systems, hooklength materials, which rig's to use, which bait!, bag's?, stringers?, particles?, chops?.. it's agony! I just love it! Add to that the methodology of spodding and in particular the allmost arcane use of the marker float to 'see' what can't actually be seen and I was sold! Yes, i'm looking for ever bigger fish, but they are the icing on the cake. They are not easy to catch, but when you do.. you feel like you earned it.....