You’ve never had it so good
Unless you are quite young you will no doubt remember the mixed reactions
that were aroused after former Prime Minister Harold McMillan told us
that economically we had never had it so good.
It was not true for many of us, but who would believe politicians anyway?
However, where angling is concerned today’s lucky anglers, especially
those who fish the rivers, have truly never had it so good because never
in living memory has pollution been more under control.
It is due mainly to the pressure from anglers, of course, and action by
the ACA.
I know that spells of hot weather like we have had recently often result
in fish deaths as a result of low oxygen levels, and this has happened
recently on a stretch of the river Don in South Yorkshire.
Remember though that until recently the Don was too polluted to support
any fish life at all, except in the extreme upper reaches. In recent years
the river had been fishing well.
I was born in Sheffield about three quarters of a century ago and I honestly
never believed that I would be able to successfully fish in the Don, and
the Rother, and even the canals in and around Sheffield.
Our nearest big river, the Trent, held little more than gudgeon and stunted
roach.
You could not fish a bait hard on the river bed because of sugar beet
slime then, or float fish below the weirs due to a deep blanket of foam
from untreated detergents in the sewerage outflows.
Now we may see less anglers on the river than in the glory years of the
70s and 80s, due in part to the smaller stocks of small fish thanks to
the awful predation by cormorants.
But the chances of big fish from the river, especially big barbel and
chub have never been greater.
I do wish this had been the case when I was young and fit and how I envy
the young anglers who have a bit of money, which we did not have in the
30s, and who have better and far cheaper tackle too.