Changing times for anglers
Over the course of my lifetime the fishing scene has altered to an amazing
extent and I honestly cannot decide which was best – fishing in
the old days, or now.
Fishing in stillwaters during the summer months anglers who were keen
on trying to land better than average-sized fish knew that nine times
out of ten fishing at the crack of dawn in summer or around dusk gave
you a much better chance of success.
Once the sun got up it was the norm to catch mainly undersized fish.
The water was nearly always clear because fish stocks, especially carp
stocks, were much lower than is the case today.
My pals and I fished through the night a lot to take advantage of the
feeding times of large fish either side of dusk and dawn.
Compare that with modern stillwater fishing on the many commercial fisheries
that anglers have access to.
Not only do we have good facilities like toilets and snack bars and car
parking close to the water, but a lot more fish!
Failure to catch is a very rare event now, and quite often we can catch
good sized fish throughout the day, and do so in water that is very discoloured.
Whether the fishing of the thirties to the sixties was preferable to what
we have now I cannot decide.
It is one of those considerable questions that made angling so fascinating.
Another example of this fascination is to try to decide whether it is
more exciting to fish wondering just how many big fish are present when
you fish a certain water, or whether it is more exciting to fish in water
where you know how many big fish are prersent, and just how big they are.
One thing that I enjoyed most was fishing for fish that I could see in
the water, especially in trout waters, rather that fishing blind as it
were, hoping for a fish to take me by surprise.