Epic carp captures

[Eric Edwards]

Some of you may recall the epic stories of former record carp captures. Walker and Yates at Redmire being the most famous.
I well remember reading about those captures. The writers painted such a picture, the atmosphere, the surroundings, the excitement of the hooked fish and thrill of finally banking a monster.

The latest bloke was reading page 3 of the sun when his bite alarm told him he had a fish.

Angling has certainly entered the new millennium - it won't last long now!

Eric

 

[Malcolm Bason]

"reading page 3 of the sun" - now thats a strange thing to do!!! Hi Eric. Whilst I can understand to a degree your looking back to how things were with the likes of Walker and Yates, a romantic picture was drawn and it sold didn't it? If the captor of the new record carp were to write a book of how he caught his 'monster' it wouldn't sell! Simple!

Progress is about moving on - moving forward, otherwise we stagnate; the same can be applied to angling which has in many, many ways moved forward.

Bite alarms are one such inovation that has seen progression within carp angling, and in my humble opinion, are a godsend! What is the point of ignoring progress when the whole thing can be made simpler by progress?

I remember many years ago sitting on a river bank watching a piece of silver paper hanging on my line to inticate a bite! I can remember shining a torch on it during the hours of darkness, waiting, freezing - but I have moved on! Now I use a hanger and bite alarm - progress!

 

[Paul Williams]

Eric,
Remember those Heron buzzers.....they were only for show ) proves alarms have moved on! i love to have a read nowadays safe inthe knowledge i can set the Delks just right.....mind you i don't read page 3....i get tennis elbow in the right arm )

 

[Eric Edwards]

You miss my point - though it's my own fault for not explaining it properly.

I've nothing against bite alarms, I use them myself, what I'm talking about is the sterility of it all. Alarms, rigs, baits and long-stays have replaced watercraft and stealth. Bed chairs and bivvies have replaced a grassy bank and the Sun has replaced the scenery and wildlife.

Call me an old fart (yes, I know you will)but the experience which we used to call angling has all but gone!

Eric

 

[Andy Thatcher]

I'd argue that if you want the best out of your fishing you need to use stealth and watercraft in conjunction with modern methods. Week before last I was at a carp lake. Sitting quite happily in the Evolution behind my Delkims. I aws disturbed by a furious splashing as someone had obviously hooked a fish close by. I looked around the corner and not 20ft from me in a little bay a teenager was stood with a doubled rod. He had crept up and taken a fish on float fished paste I hadn't heard a sound. Fair play to him. Stalking plays a part of my fishing and watercraft tells me where to fish. However modern methods are a leveller. That we seem to have anyone else of the eloquence of Chris Yates is not too much of a surprise. I'd read his books for his ability to describe a scene if the book was about metal detecting ! Talent such as his is rare. There will be others such as him and the other writers in time. It is just we currently have a how to society and we have some excellent technical writers telling us how to instantly catch. We have swung too far one way but there is a need for more descriptive authors and they will come to light.

 

[Malcolm Bason]

Hello again Eric. By 'sterile' I take it you mean "lacking inspiration or vitality"? But surely inspiration has already been effected on those who introduced the likes of bite alarms, seemingly complicated rigs, and new types of baits?

I'm sure they were fed up with using the same methods for bite indication; I'm sure they had had enough of the missed bites due to poor presentation and lost bait (thanks heavens for hair rigs LOL); and I'm sure they realised that it became more and more necessary to stay for longer and longer periods (as waters became more difficult to fish) to capture their quarry!

What everyone else has done, is simply follow the lead and the standards set by these 'inspired' individuals. There are those among us who are creating new ways of presenting their baits, new methods for many many things that we will all copy!

Sorry Eric, but give me a decent chair to sit on any day as opposed to a grassy bank! As for the Sun newspaper - well, each to their own, and far be it for me to knock the preferences of others - but I go fishing as much for the wildlife and scenery as to fish! Catching the fish becomes the bonus to a wonderful day (or two) amongst nature.

I would'nt dream of calling you "an old fart", I'm 45 myself - so I'm no kid!

With regards further to what you have said, Eric, bite alarms, rigs, baits (I assume you refer to the likes of boilies?) and long-stays are the methods adopted by carp anglers, perhaps pike anglers and sadly (depending on the viewpoint) the new brigade of barbel hunters. The "...experience which we used to call angling..." surely still applies to the vast majority of other types of fishing? I still fish for tench, roach, perch, chub, etc, etc,.... but I will adopt my style to a method which suits each species!

Carp "Angling has certainly entered the new millennium" - Long may it reign!!!

 

[GrahamM]

Andy, I appreciate what you're saying but I don't think it is a case of there being a dearth of descriptive writers, more a case of lack of demand for them.

Waterlog magazine tells you the whole story in that its pages are full of descriptive writing but it is distinctly lacking in 'how to' features. Its circulation for two months is about 6000 copies, if that. At the opposite end of the scale is Improve Your Coarse Fishing, which has little, if any, descriptive writing while near enough every page is a 'how to' piece. It has a circulation figure, for one month, of over 60,000.

The vast majority want to learn while some old farts like me want to be entertained. If the tables were turned then you would see many more descriptive authors come out of the woodwork, or some of today's 'technical' writers become more descriptive. Perhaps not with the penmanship of Chris Yates, but certainly with more eloquence than they presently display.

Magazines these days have to have a certain 'style'. Waterlog is about good prose while IYCF is about teaching beginners and improvers. And they won't stray very much from those aims, being bound by policy, budget, etc.

Now, although the internet is far removed from those wistful scenes described by Yates and his ilk it may be just the answer to many angler's prayers. You see, within reason, web pages have no restriction. There is no limit on the 'print run', no budget as such to restrict the number of pages, and so there is room in this, and I would imagine, other angling websites, for all kinds of writing, from prose to procedure.

So, if some of the more descriptive writers wanted to 'flow' then they most certainly have an outlet.

I would imagine, however, that few of those who think Waterlog is wonderful and wouldn't dream of buying a 'how to' magazine, have bridged the void between cane rods and carbon rods let alone quill pens and PC's.

So it may be quite some time before they realise that there is another form of media other than the printed word.

I did say 'few' remember, for I know that some of the contributors to this forum have enough scope to enjoy cane rods and carbon rods, along with pens and PC's.

 

[Andy Thatcher]

Graham, it seemed quite reasonable when I wrote it ! On reflection though I failed to get the point I wished to make across.
It is not a matter of mysticism that Waterlog does not sell in volumes. For me a halcyon day of yester year involved a whole day not having to take the spool off your reel to untangle the line that had managed to tangle itself around the spindle in such a way that you wondered why you couldn't duplicate a knot that was so secure. I am glad that the fishing world is diverse and that people get pleasure from harking back to the times they see as golden. Just please do not ask me to use a split cane rod though as I am so cack handed I’d be afraid of breaking it, also there would be the problem of thinking that I was using technology that had not changed that much in 2000 years since a bloke in China had an idea. No mass market in a nutshell.
I believe the driving force for Eric’s thread was that the captor of the new carp record was absolutely honest a regards his actions leading up to the capture. It would be beyond belief that 3 carp record holders should be able to write to the standards of Yates & Walker. I did not intend to give the impression that I think there is a dearth of talent, just reading John Bailey will answer that. However the articles that I read with most interest are those that cover the why’s. Walker & Yates were/are excellent at this. I am going to give a book of yours a plug now, cheque will do well. The reason for this is that you will see exactly what I am trying, badly, to get at. In Advanced Coarse Fishing you go to pains to explain the choices you go through when getting to a swim. You explain the reasons why you reject this or that rig/bait for example. I know that IYCF etc have give their writers a set amount of space that may not of been present whilst writing that book but a flavour of the thought process would be refreshing. Yes that does include Coarse Fisherman as well. It is interesting and also heaven forbid should someone blank they could explain what went wrong. That would also be entertaining. Yes even possibly for old farts like you ! I can just about avoid that accusation for another decade, it’s all in the mind I’m told anyway.
The Internet could be the answer. It seems that I am finding new interesting ideas every day online but will there be a time when it will rival a monthly for quality of content ? Not certain.
What the Internet does do though is give everybody a voice, it does give people a chance to contribute. Not a bad thing eh ?

Cheers
Andy

 

[Philip Inzani]

Talking of mags, does anyone remeber one called "specialist angling world"

...I only ever saw two editions. It was great....not biased on Carp, Carp, Carp which is probably why I think it went under at that time just a good cross section of both technical and non technical features across a range of species.

I always wonder what happened to it.
I think it may do better this time around if someone tried it.

 

[sam oddy]

Philip the magazine lasted about four or five issues and was a really good read. I think it was published by Kevin Clifford at about the same time as Carp Talk started.

One of its better features was it published other than well known writers and was indeed non carp biased.