Young anglers miss out
My recent feature in this column, which compared angling as it used to be and
as it is now, did not mention the most alarming change that has taken place in
the sport, and it is a change for the worse.
When I was a schoolboy the most enjoyable thing about my young life, and that
of my pals, was the freedom to roam and to play cricket in the park away from
the restrictions imposed by parents in constant attendance. Observing wildlife
was a joy to some of us, and some pals loved to join me on fishing expeditions.
My earliest memory is of dangling a bit of cotton from a garden cane in a pond
where I had seen older boys catching sticklebacks while my parents frantically
searched for me.
I caught my first fish almost three quarters of a century ago and progressed from
catching small fry like minnows and bullheads and loach and gudgeon to more serious
fishing.
From the age of 12 I sometimes fished in a stream and some ponds from before dawn
before going to school, and sometimes at weekends fished all night long on my
own in a pond in some woods.
Maybe I was an exceptional case, being obsessed even at that early age by angling.
But even the less serious young anglers are now denied the opportunity to go off
either alone or with pals to fish because parents fear for their children’s
safety in the world where crime is so rife. We all know that this is because there
is no adequate punishment for criminal behaviour any more. Blame the politicians.
l Angling is one of those pastimes where statements of a conflicting nature may
both be true in the right circumstances.
For example, we were always told that we must avoid letting fish feel aware of
the restrictions of our tackle by using sliding links for our weights or free
line tackle.
Now in some situations we deliberately use a heavy fixed lead, which the fish
feels before dashing off and hooking itself.
Similarly, where once we tried to put our tackle in gently using light float tackle,
anglers who seek to catch fish feeding on pellet baits near the surface are encouraged
to use special bulky floats that land with a splash. It’s a funny old world
isn’t it?