LOL

Bad time to start.

Very few go “fishing” these days.

Mostly just catching now.

Hi Ryan and welcome to the wonderful world of fishing.

It isn’t the best time of the year to catch fish of any sort (pike excepted) but the best thing to do is to ask in the local tackle shops and look in the angling papers for venues near you. I would then take a wander around those on a Saturday or Sunday and see what is being caught. If there is a match on, keep away from the bank edges as anglers may be fishing there. See what is being caught and how. If you can wait until the end of the match, follow the scales and you can see exactly what was caught and what species. You can then ask people how they did it and what bait.

To be honest, I wouldn’t worrry about the size of the fish you catch at the moment. Just enjoy being out there and catching a few even if they are tiddlers. Many of us have been catching relatively small fish for most of our lives, and loved it! It is only the last 15 to 20 years that specimen carp fishing and also commercial water match fishing where large fish are caught relatively easily that most of us have caught them other than the odd very welcome bonus tench or big bream.

@caster rob wrote:

LOL

Bad time to start.

Very few go “fishing” these days.

Mostly just catching now.

Isnt that a good thing ?

That all depends on your view of fishing itself. There are those for whom fishing is the attraction, they enjoy the mental, physical and environmental aspects of the pursuit, and that once the capture is achieved then it is something of an anti climax and the process starts again. Climbing mountains can be the same – once you are at the top there is a brief moment of satisfaction and then it all feels a bit flat.
This deferred gratification is not fashionable and instant gratification is the order of the day. Hence the popularity of commercial fisheries and guided package tours up the big mountains.
If the trend continues it is difficult to predict if there will be much ‘fishing’ in 20 years or so; and it remains to be seen how much long term interest can be sustained by just catching.

Life evolves, the world evolves, attitudes and people change thats development,I fish a variety of matches mostly on some difficult venues I was 2nd on a match in April with 9oz, I honestly cant say I enjoyed that day, for me I think fishing is going in the right direction lifes too short to be scratting about down the canal for a few bits that was ok when its all we had. Ryanfish I recomend you go find a commercial fishery and fish waggler with maggot, get plenty of bites of all species of fish and build your experience from there.

As others have said, its not a great time of year if you are new to fishing. Fish, being cold-blooded will be starting to slow down for the winter and will be eating less. You can have red letter days in the winter, but also days when you will catch less.

The best way to learn is to fish with people who are better than you. They will give you tips and put you right when you go wrong. If they don’t do that then move on! Read all you can, but reading supplements learning on the bankside, rather than replaces it.

I was really driven to respond to this thread by the discussion that’s starting about the point of fishing.

To my mind fishing is not just about catching fish, it is about trying to catch fish. So the effort, the skill, the planning and the concentration are the things that make it what it is, not just the catching of fish. If fishing was just about catching fish then mountain climbing would just be about getting to the top of mountains, in which case mountaineers would use helicopters.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t particularly like commercials. They make catching fish easier and blanking less likely. As soon as you make it unnecessary it becomes unbearable. They also distort the perspective of natural venues, making them seem crap by comparison.

I remember about 20 years ago one of my old buddies in London told me that the River Lea was “crap now because you only caught ounces”. He could go to a carp lake and bag up. I had the old club records and looked back at what he’d caught on the Lea over the years. He’d only ever caught ounces! The river wasn’t any worse, he’d just got used to sacking up on the lakes.

@pr@ngler wrote:

I was really driven to respond to this thread by the discussion that’s starting about the point of fishing.

To my mind fishing is not just about catching fish, it is about trying to catch fish. So the effort, the skill, the planning and the concentration are the things that make it what it is, not just the catching of fish. If fishing was just about catching fish then mountain climbing would just be about getting to the top of mountains, in which case mountaineers would use helicopters.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t particularly like commercials. They make catching fish easier and blanking less likely. As soon as you make it unnecessary it becomes unbearable. They also distort the perspective of natural venues, making them seem crap by comparison.

I remember about 20 years ago one of my old buddies in London told me that the River Lea was “crap now because you only caught ounces”. He could go to a carp lake and bag up. I had the old club records and looked back at what he’d caught on the Lea over the years. He’d only ever caught ounces! The river wasn’t any worse, he’d just got used to sacking up on the lakes.

Pr@ngler – nail on the proverbial head comes to mind with your post. How very very true.

Totally agree.

Best thing you can do chap, is to join a club that’s local to you in your area.

I dont think the demise of river fishing is solely due to low catches. Rivers by their nature change overnight, they can be unsafe with poor access and poor banks for setting up. When we just fished stick floats it was easier as we stood up but with poles etc solid fishing stations become necessary. Long walk then become more of a problem and this connected with us anglers generaly ageing means rivers are a distant memory. My last river match so me struggle in flood conditions and almost slip in several times. Cars were vandalised and some bloke had the cheek to charge us for parking even though we had a hike to the river. Oh and I blanked along with most others.
Commercials are the saviour of angling for me, without them I think I would have packed it all in years ago.

I agree with you John that other factors come to play. On top of that they all add up; its iterative.

One of the by products of having shorter walks on commercials is that we can take more gear with us (a good friend of mine carries two poles!), and the gear we have is not as portable as it used to be (my Fox box and trolley are a case in point). A consequence of that is that we can’t carry all the gear if we have to walk 20 pegs on a river, or we feel as though we’re losing out if we don’t carry it all.

I see this level of specialisation and emphasis on kit (what ever happened to bank sticks?!) as a sign of the decadence of coarse angling.

I do wonder about the risk to anglers and cars away from commercials. Is it worse now or is it that having a safer alternative just makes these things seem worse?

Peter, I dont think we are imagining things being worse. I know a number of anglers who have been threatened whilst fishing the local canal. When you are the only angler around for miles you are vulnerable to any sort of villiage idiot. These comprise any sort of scum bags out to steal what they can through to serious anti anglers such as the Animal liberation brigade. In the old days I am sure some liberalists/ thieves were deal with positively but these days no one can raise a finger without fear of the long arm of the law being summoned.
If you throw in our Eastern block visitors as well the whole scene for “wild” fishing as it used to be is much more difficult. We all know the late hours can be best for fishing but I would not even walk some of the best rivers/canals local to me late at night let alone set my stall out to fish.
I can only see things getting worse which is sad.
Commercials provide strength in numbers for anglers as well as a managed environment most trouble makers will not be able to access.

Not sure about Devon but the Broads and the Broadland rivers are as safe as houses unless you fall in of course. I can honestly say that I have never heard of any problems in the 35years that I have been fishing them and the Suffolk rivers that are not connected to the Broads system. In fact the only thefts that I have heard of are from the local commercial fishery at night where the gates were locked and theoretically there was no access.

Yes we have fish thieves buit never any threatening behaviour.

I think the last 3 posts are way off the topic and not very encouraging to a newcomer to the sport. I have never been threatened or had anything stolen when fishing. The only incident that I was personally involved with was when I was with the team practicing for the Div. 1 National on the Thames, 15 or so years ago. Of 9 cars parked on the roadside (a good walk from the river), six of the older ones were broken into and as it was the last day of a weeks practice they had their overnight bags stolen.

I dont think its off topic at all. For anyone new to fishing not to be made aware of;
Cars routinely broken into;
Threats of violence;
Theft of tackle;
The fact that rivers offer great sport but cannot compete on weight terms with most commercials;
The poster did say he wanted to catch big fish after all;
These things may not be an issue in rural Suffolk but they are a day to day reality in South Yorkshire, and I am sure lots of other places as well.
Dont even get me started on the theft of fish, I often come across “anglers” on the local canal spinning to foul hook carp whilst throwing bricks in to spook them. Hand lines out tied to trees and sometimes as many as 10 rods out each. Fires by the towpath are ample evidence of instant BBQ of anything they can catch.
For some “wild fishing” is a none starter sadly.
Its the older locals I feel sorry for as they have to fish these sort of places as commercials are too far and too expensive, some of the stories they tell me border on the unbelievable. I suppose its the reality of urban life 2012.

Those Yorkshire folk sound really quaint.

I think I would move if I was unfortunate enough to live there!

Not just confined to Yorkshire sadly. Cars were routinely being broken into on the Trent years ago whilst anglers were fishing. A friend was threatened on the Fosssdyke whilst pleasure fishing a secluded stretch. Finally on the Upper Trent we had a match (which was near a Gypsy camp) and one of our lads was subjected to all sorts of abuse, tackle theft, stone throwing etc, he had to pack up and has not been with us since.
I contrast this with some of our Eastern friends poaching a local commercial, (the owner just happens to be a black belt), they were seen off with a bank stick through their windscreen and have not been back.
No police were called.

It’s headline data I know, but page 14 of http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf suggests a massive increase in crime since the 1950s. I assume that crime on the riverbank would be in direct proportion to this.

Sheffield is not bad for crime with a crime rate of 76.7 crimes per 1000 residents in the last year. We can compare this to Peterborough (95) and Leicester (100) (http://www.police.uk/police-crime-commissioners/compare-your-area/?q=Sheffield,%20South%20Yorkshire,%20UK)

John lives in Rotherham, and despite his perceptions, crime is less frequent there at only 65 crimes per 1000 residents in the last year. You can compare that to Great Yarmouth (67)

I notice that East Anglia does boast two of the most crime free areas in the country, presumably because you’re all such gentle people from being able to fish on rivers.

Nowt like a bit of data on a Friday morning.

I’ve fished the upper/middle Trent nearly all my life and the only problems I’ve ever heard of were a few car break-ins in the Nottingham area but that was late 70s-early 80s when they were much easier to steal.
Never fished any venue anywhere near a gypsy camp and I doubt many people would.
Only issue recently has been the nuisance of cyclists when i occasionally venture on the towpath.

The whole point I am trying to make is that the demise of river fishing is not entirely due to low catches. Some remain loyal and good luck to them. Commercials are my saviour and the only place to this day I have caught fish over 10lb in weight on a fairly frequent basis.
If you have wild stretches of river to fish where you can expect to snare a few fish and you can fish in relative safety you are lucky.

I do find this debate interesting. I used it as a sub-plot in my inaugural.

20 years ago the prospect of regularly catching fish over 10lb would have been unthinkable. One of my fears is that the allure of that makes struggling for ounces on a canal or river (which we’ve done for generations) unnecessary. My son caught an 8lb carp on his second fishing trip. He was 8 at the time and wouldn’t believe me that I fished for 30 years before I caught a fish that big.

We’ll have to sit on our own tomorrow night because Julie and Yvonne are going to be cross with us if this is all we talk about.

Just read a local angling reporters weekly news column, it seems thefts are still common, including now on commercials. The latest incident involved a drive off of an anglers van whilst he was taking his box to his peg, he does not say which fishery but clearly anglers beware.
Nice part of the world South Yorkshire.

Fishing my local commercial I park behind my peg and leave my keys in the ignition about 16 metres from my platform. Up until this last summer I would normally leave the boot open as well, stopped it getting too hot. Safe as houses and ensures I don’t drop the keys in the lake!