New look Angling Times

[Eric Hayes]

Nostalgia, is not what it used to be.

 

[David Hind]

Ah yes - the Kingfisher Guild.

I recall owning a sun visor and several ?award? badges sown onto a fishing waistcoat (my pride and joy) this was in the early 80?s.

I enjoyed reading AT then and again now that I?ve restarted fishing.
AT bring back the guild ? help promote fishing to youngsters, give them some goals to aim for!

 

[Bob Roberts]

"You weren't in the Kingfisher Guild then Bob, I take it?"

Alas no, Nigel. But I did write the kids column for a number of years before it became Matt Hayes' domain.

When being critical of the current format, folks might care to think back to that cringe making era of a near 40 year old Matt wearing baseball caps back to front and spouting, Yo man! Cowabunga!.

And what about dear old Julian Cundiff as our topless page 7 man?

You reckon things have got worse? Give me a break. Production levels are better than ever. The technical content is there for others to aspire to. The news is snappy, well illustrated and coverage of the southern half of the country is exceptional.

The match fishing content is a bit boring. Man wins 20-pegger with 100lb small carp on pole, paste and pellet. Another man wins 20-pegger...

Too many glorified knock-ups given valuable space when we need a premier league of matches. Match reporting should feature the best anglers, the best teams and only the very best matches. Too much dilution and that's because we don't have the infrastructure to sort out the wheat from the chaff but that's something bigger than a couple of newspapers.

Serious question: Why is everyone so quick to criticise the Times yet not the Mail? The Mail is by far the least popular...

 

[Lee Swords]

"Familiarity breeds contempt"



Nobody reads the Mail!

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA)]

Well Bob, when I came back from SA in '94, I took AT every week.

And what a prodigious load of shite it was.

I'll never forget when they had a disgusting revoltingly ugly looking Ruffe Slapper, who's figure was enough to make you puke, sitting in the never never, on a conti-box on page 3.

And then there were the Matt Hayes columns.

Not only did he spout "Yo man" and "Cowabunga", he wrote such drivel as: "Im a dapper snapper and I'm looking for a slapper!"

And remember: "Whinge of the Week!!"

For crying in a bucket, who the heck concocted this crap?

And who the heck was that ugly slapper who was on the staff?

I've forgotten but it's probably a good job that I did.

The nineties was the period whan AT sank to the depths.

Angling Times is supposed to be a fishing newspaper, not a contender to The Sun, The Daily Mirror of The News of the World!

 

[Wolfman Woody]

Well, at least it couldn't have been Gordon Brown's fault, eh Ron?

 

[SherlockofSheff]

Back to the original question. Is angling times as good as it used to be? I started reading AT in the late 80's when I took up fishing at age 13. At that time I was fascinated by it, and would read the print off cover to cover as there seemed to be some magic in the words. Maybe it's because I've become older and more proficient that the magic seems to have dwindled, as the slope of my learning curve reaches a more level horizon.

Maybe AT is a reflection of the current stagnating condition that angling is currently enjoying, and merely reporting the facts as such. There are only so many times you can read about this pellet or that boilie and carp on the pole before you want to do someone a serious mischief.

Am I bored of angling? Not on your nelly. There is nothing that gives me a bigger buzz, and for me the magic is still there when I'm stood in the Don in my waders trotting a stickfloat for what to some may seem modest fish (remember you can't catch a 40lb carp that isn't in there!!).

For me AT is stale and repetitive, but again maybe that is because AT seems convinced that all of it's potential readers are fascinated by catching carp either by pole or bolt rig and boilie, and until we start fishing on the moon, I can't see that postion changing. There is an angling publication that meets my needs, and that is Angling Star, which being local is relevant to my fishing, and contains ORIGINAL articles written by real characters who have something valid to say without blowing their own trumpets. A number of them are present on this forum.

For me the magic remains in the pages of Angling Star, and I am always itching to get a copy the first day it is out. The first article I always read was John Ledgers, and I'm just glad I have an archive of back copys so I can hear what the top boy had to say again and again. John new how to enjoy his fishing and how to convey that onto paper. Compare that with AT who seem to think that being the nephew of John Wilson counts as automatic qualification as an angling journalist!

For me a little known local lad who does not court the limelight being given the opportunity to share his depth of knowledge may be the step forward AT needs to redeem itself from the commercial mass market non-entity which it has become.

By the way Matt I sympathise with you over the lack of words as you would probably guess from the length of this reply.

 

[Steve Spiller]

The sun visor was my pride of joy and my chub badge too!

Sherlock, you've summed it up pretty well, I would prefer to read about the local lad too.

 

[Bob Roberts]

Nostalgia is a dangerous illness. Widespread among old codgers but fortunately the young appear immune to it.

I too started reading the Times and Mail at around the same age as Sherlock. In truth we probably all did and it doesn't matter if you were 13 in the 60's, 70's or last week, chances are that's the Angling Times you will come to remember fondly.

Folks who were 13 in 1994 will remember a different paper to the one Ron remembers. Today's beginner will learn as much and more from the paper than we ever did. Papers actually shape the future rather than the present.

Ron's a child of Walker, as are many others on here. Today's pubescent novices will treasure Wilson and Hayes in just the same way as Ron does Walker when they're the proud possessors of bus passes and sure as eggs they'll be pooh-pooing the new kids on the block, "This electronic version o' t'Times ain't like it used to be yer know. Ah remember when yer hands were black as t'coal from t'ink after you'd read it!"

And the kids'll wonder what the old bugger's on about, convinced that Justin and Stig are ten times better writers than the old fuddy duddyies...

Mark my words, it'll happen.

Just hope I'm still around to see it.

 

[The Monk]

Today's pubescent novices will treasure Wilson and Hayes in just the same way as Ron does Walker

I`m not so sure Bob, I think there is a world of difference between Walker and his later contempories, do we in our later years not still value those from the golden age of angling, long before the days of our adolesence, the famous anglers of the 1800s and early 1900s

 

[Bob Roberts]

Speaking personally? No

But had I been 13 in the 1800's and early 1900's like Ron, maybe yes!

On a side issue, I find so little merit in the writings of anglers from that era. It's not relevant to the world I live in and I'm damned sure I'm not going to mess around with bullocks pith when pellets are dead cheap and just as effective.

At best, much of what they wrote was fanciful. At worst it was a work of fiction. As for sending your man to bait up the Trent with a thousand lobs each morning, that's going to be a fat lot of good unless you stitch up a venue completely.

Probably work at Hazelford, mind ;-)!!!

 

[The Monk]

From a modern approach yes I agree we have developed considerably, from a nostalgic view however I must confess to being a great fan of our earlier writers, not so much from the actual methodologies in which they used to fish, but more from the period and the way things were in those long lost days

 

[Nigel Connor(ACA ,SAA)]

I take it you do not subscribe to Waterlog then Bob?

 

[BAZ (Angel of the North)]

That's the one thing that I miss the most, being able to pre-bait a swim properly over a period of days or weeks, especially on a stillwater. The canal was my favourite place for this, but as boat traffic got heavier it soon became a waste of time. Plus the fact that as angling became even more popular, finding somewhere away from prying eyes became an impossibility.

 

[Lee Swords]

Another pretty bloody good AT hit the doormat this morning!



Well done lads!

 

[hugh middleton]

Love the Mail!

 

[Bob Roberts]

I loved the angling magazines of the 70's. Coarse Fisherman, Coarse Angler - who can forget the titanic editorial battles between David Hall and Colin Dyson? Snide Rumours and Dirty Lies, Tales Of Tyd, Wading On, Love Stories. Bucknall, Moorland, Ron Lees' Life and Times, thank God I hung on to a few for old times sake.

I doubt there was aver an era to match it, but do you know what? Today's 13-year-olds, brought up on wall to wall digital TV angling coverage would think it was rubbish, I guess.

Well done Hugh! The worst thing in this world is not to be talked about. You've reminded us that there is a second paper...!

 

[Nigel Connor(ACA ,SAA)]

Bob, had my customary glance at AT in Smiths this lunchtime and do you know what, I bought it! I agree with Lee, it looks good.

 

[The Monk]

I loved the angling magazines of the 70's. Coarse Fisherman, Coarse Angler - who can forget the titanic editorial battles between David Hall and Colin Dyson? Snide Rumours and Dirty Lies, Tales Of Tyd, Wading On, Love Stories. Bucknall, Moorland, Ron Lees' Life and Times, thank God I hung on to a few for old times sake.


yes totally agree there Bob, it was an exciting time with some excellent writers, Chris Binyon was a favourite of mine, god rest him

 

[Bob Roberts]

Shining Times eh!

But it's a bit like expecting todays kids to like Val Doonican, Hermans Hermits or Slaughter and the Dogs.

David Hall uses a phrase, "We all have our time..."

That's why so many angling writers come and go. Very few manage to transcend generations.