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oohh at last its hit the fan !!!!!!!!!!

Richard Isaacs said:
For me there’s no evidence either way so there’s no grounds for anyone to react at all
You could put anyone’s voice against anyone’s legs and without a confession it’s worthless.
Joe is absolutely right the disgusting comments coming out of social media on this is very shameful and I’m glad the people of bfw are being a lot more conservative around the discussion.

Now i don’t believe it’s a harmless thing to do it and it’s not a mistake and if it was the case that it was proved to be MB did exactly this, then yes I’d feel a little disappointed.

It’s not the re hooking that’s the biggest problem as we’ve expressed we hook them anyway, it’s the unnecessary stress you put on extra with re playing it. Your exhausting it and we know how bad that is for barbel.

I would not condone any cyber bullying against him either way, despite the disappointment feeling.

No it’s not the same as live bait fishing and expressing such a point wouldn’t be good for our sport because we all use live baits in our fishing and that’s just opening doors to potential grief we don’t need.

If it goes on (which I didn’t know about) then it’s naughty in my opinion
Nothing has been proven the video isn’t worth a toss

Poor Martin doesn’t deserve the hammer he’s getting at the moment whether it’s true or not.
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My take from MB's statement it is that he admitted the video is genuine and he did say that, just did he really do it or not is unknown.
 
Richard Isaacs said:
For me there’s no evidence either way so there’s no grounds for anyone to react at all
You could put anyone’s voice against anyone’s legs and without a confession it’s worthless.
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I can't say this is of any importance to me really, but I was just wondering why you'd not consider the absence of a denial quite important to how you might think about it?
 
Joe Winstanley said:
I had a look in on Instagram and the hate, bile and vitriol being posted by some people is just downright disgraceful. It's just as bad on another single species forum.
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its one of the reasons why I do not subscribe to instagram and its like. Far too much unfettered freedom allowed to those of an unkind nature and temperament. This demonstrates the enormous downside of social media.
 
Damian Kimmins said:
I can't say this is of any importance to me really, but I was just wondering why you'd not consider the absence of a denial quite important to how you might think about it?
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Sorry to be brief Damian but that was going to be my last comment on this.

To answer your question I’m not speculating.
No one knows who he’s been talking to or what advice he’s been given.
Absence of denial is not a confession as bad as it might look sometimes.
 
Something that no one has mentioned yet is that there is no such thing as bad publicity! Mmmm ….🧐
 
Kevin Steele said:
Subjects of online abuse might have something to say about that, but if we're trotting out cliches, how about: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all".
.
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Indeed. And I agree completely, which is why if you scroll back through this thread you’ll find not a single comment from me speculating about Martin Bowler‘s guilt or otherwise relating to this issue.
 
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Re read the comments on this thread , then go on you tube and watch '' Martin Bowlers life in Angling '' it may change your view on this matter
 
MB‘s statement confirms it’s him in the video, so that’s not speculation. The question is, why wouldn’t your statement simply say that you have never re-hooked a Barbel, unless you have? It’s very politician like and not coming across well at all.


IMG_0046.jpeg
 
Graham Elliott said:
Yes, threads and discussions will throw up varying views and opinions. Often no right ones.

It would be terrible if we all agreed something and very boring.

Agree?
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True enough Graham.

Although there are some things that thankfully we all seem to agree on here. Namely, that there is no place for bullying or abusive comments. Long may that continue. Some of the spite and invective I've seen posted elsewhere makes me grateful for BFW.
 
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One
Joe Winstanley said:
True enough Graham.

Although there are some things that thankfully we all seem to agree on here. Namely, that there is no place for bullying or abusive comments. Long may that continue. Some of the spite and invective I've seen posted elsewhere makes me grateful for BFW.
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The main reason I transferred from another site last year.
 
On the subject of celebrity anglers, I was fishing White Acres Specimen Lake, circa 20 years ago. 3 of us spent 7 days on the lake, in bivvys. Fish o mania or something was on the match lakes, with top match anglers competing and Matt Hayes presenting the awards. Incidentally, it’s the best time to fish the specimen lake as pleasure anglers seem to avoid the place.

Anyway, a few days in and about 25% of the lake gets roped off and we are told we can’t fish this area and the reason why will become clearer later in the week. The 3 of us are the only anglers on the lake

So we sit for the next few days, watching various people constantly coming and going, lots of discussions and absolutely massive amounts of bait being fed into 3/4 specific areas. It was clearly being set up for some one / people to fish. This pattern continues for a good 3 days before the various people arrive with cameras, etc and fully set up 2 fishing pegs with rods, bivvies, etc. Still no sign of any angler

2 celebrity anglers then arrive on what must have been the fourth day and to be fair they did come and speak to us and discussed what they were doing and also how our weeks fishing had been. Really nice, normal, down to earth people. Just as they seemed on TV

Rest assured, the celebrity anglers fished the 4 heavily pre-baited swims and not surprisingly caught the big Carp they were fishing for.

What was funny for us is that in the video that was made, you can see us mortals in the background in some of the takes, watching the celebrity anglers. I say video as this was VHS days lol

I wasn’t hugely surprised that the swims had been heavily pre-baited and it makes sense, when you consider they are making a tv programme, that they need to guarantee that they catch fish

I was just disappointed that these fishing gods/gurus like to make out they are doing all of this themselves. You watch the show and have the idea that they sleep in the back of a van, carry all their own equiptment and set up the rods and terminal tackle etc, just like us mere mortals.

The reality is, they just turned up with everything already set up, swims pre-baited, rods on the pod, terminal tackle tied, bite alarms, bivvy, ready to go. I can only assume that the swims were even recommended by the bailiff

I never felt the same about their TV programmes after that
 
Daniel Slough said:
On the subject of celebrity anglers, I was fishing White Acres Specimen Lake, circa 20 years ago. 3 of us spent 7 days on the lake, in bivvys. Fish o mania or something was on the match lakes, with top match anglers competing and Matt Hayes presenting the awards. Incidentally, it’s the best time to fish the specimen lake as pleasure anglers seem to avoid the place.

Anyway, a few days in and about 25% of the lake gets roped off and we are told we can’t fish this area and the reason why will become clearer later in the week. The 3 of us are the only anglers on the lake

So we sit for the next few days, watching various people constantly coming and going, lots of discussions and absolutely massive amounts of bait being fed into 3/4 specific areas. It was clearly being set up for some one / people to fish. This pattern continues for a good 3 days before the various people arrive with cameras, etc and fully set up 2 fishing pegs with rods, bivvies, etc. Still no sign of any angler

2 celebrity anglers then arrive on what must have been the fourth day and to be fair they did come and speak to us and discussed what they were doing and also how our weeks fishing had been. Really nice, normal, down to earth people. Just as they seemed on TV

Rest assured, the celebrity anglers fished the 4 heavily pre-baited swims and not surprisingly caught the big Carp they were fishing for.

What was funny for us is that in the video that was made, you can see us mortals in the background in some of the takes, watching the celebrity anglers. I say video as this was VHS days lol

I wasn’t hugely surprised that the swims had been heavily pre-baited and it makes sense, when you consider they are making a tv programme, that they need to guarantee that they catch fish

I was just disappointed that these fishing gods/gurus like to make out they are doing all of this themselves. You watch the show and have the idea that they sleep in the back of a van, carry all their own equiptment and set up the rods and terminal tackle etc, just like us mere mortals.

The reality is, they just turned up with everything already set up, swims pre-baited, rods on the pod, terminal tackle tied, bite alarms, bivvy, ready to go. I can only assume that the swims were even recommended by the bailiff

I never felt the same about their TV programmes after that
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Not surprised at all by this fishing approach. Making fishing programmes costs a lot of money and watching anglers on tv blanking is a huge turn off I imagine.
If you keep this mind whilst watching a heavily edited show there is no harm in it. After all, if they wanted to employ somebody to catch nothing then I could be that ‘celebrity’ angler .
Keep smiling,
G.T.
 
Daniel Slough said:
On the subject of celebrity anglers, I was fishing White Acres Specimen Lake, circa 20 years ago. 3 of us spent 7 days on the lake, in bivvys. Fish o mania or something was on the match lakes, with top match anglers competing and Matt Hayes presenting the awards. Incidentally, it’s the best time to fish the specimen lake as pleasure anglers seem to avoid the place.

Anyway, a few days in and about 25% of the lake gets roped off and we are told we can’t fish this area and the reason why will become clearer later in the week. The 3 of us are the only anglers on the lake

So we sit for the next few days, watching various people constantly coming and going, lots of discussions and absolutely massive amounts of bait being fed into 3/4 specific areas. It was clearly being set up for some one / people to fish. This pattern continues for a good 3 days before the various people arrive with cameras, etc and fully set up 2 fishing pegs with rods, bivvies, etc. Still no sign of any angler

2 celebrity anglers then arrive on what must have been the fourth day and to be fair they did come and speak to us and discussed what they were doing and also how our weeks fishing had been. Really nice, normal, down to earth people. Just as they seemed on TV

Rest assured, the celebrity anglers fished the 4 heavily pre-baited swims and not surprisingly caught the big Carp they were fishing for.

What was funny for us is that in the video that was made, you can see us mortals in the background in some of the takes, watching the celebrity anglers. I say video as this was VHS days lol

I wasn’t hugely surprised that the swims had been heavily pre-baited and it makes sense, when you consider they are making a tv programme, that they need to guarantee that they catch fish

I was just disappointed that these fishing gods/gurus like to make out they are doing all of this themselves. You watch the show and have the idea that they sleep in the back of a van, carry all their own equiptment and set up the rods and terminal tackle etc, just like us mere mortals.

The reality is, they just turned up with everything already set up, swims pre-baited, rods on the pod, terminal tackle tied, bite alarms, bivvy, ready to go. I can only assume that the swims were even recommended by the bailiff

I never felt the same about their TV programmes after that
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This has been a turning point in my enthusiasm for fishing media (books aside).

Whilst I haven't changed my view on how acceptable the alleged incident is, after a week or two to think about it I largely just feel sorry for Martin now.

Perhaps it's also been a lesson in putting people on pedestals, thou shalt not worship false idols.
 
Graham Tremble said:
Not surprised at all by this fishing approach. Making fishing programmes costs a lot of money and watching anglers on tv blanking is a huge turn off I imagine.
If you keep this mind whilst watching a heavily edited show there is no harm in it. After all, if they wanted to employ somebody to catch nothing then I could be that ‘celebrity’ angler .
Keep smiling,
G.T.
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It's been going on for years that kind of stuff. Think John Wilson just arrived at a stretch of river without anything having been laid out prior?
Yes, it's disappointing that this is the way tbings are, but if some weren't slaves to this promotional stuff it wouldn't be everywhere.
 
I'm surprised that anyone is naive enough to think that the likes of Paul and Bob spend all day fishing and everything that is on film is caught by either of them. It's genteel entertainment, not the A-Z of how to fish... it's not meant to be taken too seriously.
.
 
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