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

I guess we will all find out the truth sooner or later.

Aside from that, I'm so bloody glad that my livelihood isn't angling, and that when I go fishing I get to escape and enjoy some peace. I'd hate the prospect of having to 'generate content' and all the pressure that comes with it. And as has been pointed out, it would be remarkable if those involved in angling productions don't have to pull strokes of varying kinds in order to keep their paymasters satisfied.
 
Christian Tyroll said:
Equally when Martins talking about taking legal action against people, I would assume Jack would be pretty confident in what’s he’s said.

I’m reserving damnation until it all comes out but personally I don’t think it looks good at all.
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IT doesn’t look good, you are right.
There’s alot that doesn’t add up though.

Like Jack said That video if allowed to go on shows undeniable identity….. why can’t that be shared. It’s not like the one we’ve seen is trying to hide identities.

Just discovered….. from where …… fell from the sky.
If I had taken that video and caught 2 people with names in the game like that discussing that act, I’d definitely be holding my hand up.

Why was the secret filming that was discovered from nowhere going on in the first place. It’s almost as if it was known that Martin was going to ask that question. Either he asks that a lot or that was extremely convenient timing.

Sorry, but if your going to make a statement claiming it’s a real clip then share the bit that happened after. The bit with a smoking gun.
 
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I would guess that clip was a run on from the video being made....After the fish was landed, and maybe the quality was not very good ?
 
If the footage is genuine, is it really that shocking ? If you have paid a cameraman to do a feature, the fishing is hard and you muck up the action shot, what is likely to happen ? Rest the fish, rehook it and take two. Granted it’s not ideal, but also it’s not like it’s a regular occurrence that’s going to impact fish stocks or be something that your average angler is going to copy. If you think it’s unethical and you live bait, you’re on very shaky ground ! I’ve caught the same fish in consecutive casts with absolutely no harm done and I do live bait. No doubt some of the most vociferous voices condemning MB regularly litter the banks, keep fish out of the water far too long, fish when water temperatures are critically high, fish with inadequate tackle …….. Jealousy is something that’s never in short supply in the world of angling. This looks like a hatchet job and if so, I certainly won’t be buying a certain tackle company’s products again. Shameful.
 
Richard Isaacs said:
IT doesn’t look good, you are right.
There’s alot that doesn’t add up though.

Like Jack said That video if allowed to go on shows undeniable identity….. why can’t that be shared. It’s not like the one we’ve seen is trying to hide identities.

Just discovered….. from where …… fell from the sky.
If I had taken that video and caught 2 people with names in the game like that discussing that act, I’d definitely be holding my hand up.

Why was the secret filming that was discovered from nowhere going on in the first place. It’s almost as if it was known that Martin was going to ask that question. Either he asks that a lot or that was extremely convenient timing.

Sorry, but if your going to make a statement claiming it’s a real clip then share the bit that happened after. The bit with a smoking gun.
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Agree that with the secret filming it looks a bit like a stitch up.

On the live baiting topic it’s a good point and you’ve definitely got me questioning my judgement. That said you wouldn’t live bait with a barbel, that’s known for fighting particularly hard. Or a grayling.

Equally Martin is a doing an AT feature every week, mainly shot on his own. It’s not hard to see how it could be done week in week out to make life easier.

Whether it affects fish stocks or not is beside the point for me. It’s just not cricket.
 
Martin’s official statement, well…
IMG_2884.png
 
Crickets not cricket anymore either and probably never was 😁. If you watch angling content, which I do, then I’m afraid you have to accept some strokes are pulled occasionally. People can extrapolate that out to it being standard practice based on one clip if they want, but I don’t know enough about MB or his production crew to do that. There’s possibly a far bigger transgression been committed imo.
 
Nick Coulthurst said:
If the footage is genuine, is it really that shocking ? If you have paid a cameraman to do a feature, the fishing is hard and you muck up the action shot, what is likely to happen ? Rest the fish, rehook it and take two. Granted it’s not ideal, but also it’s not like it’s a regular occurrence that’s going to impact fish stocks or be something that your average angler is going to copy. If you think it’s unethical and you live bait, you’re on very shaky ground ! I’ve caught the same fish in consecutive casts with absolutely no harm done and I do live bait. No doubt some of the most vociferous voices condemning MB regularly litter the banks, keep fish out of the water far too long, fish when water temperatures are critically high, fish with inadequate tackle …….. Jealousy is something that’s never in short supply in the world of angling. This looks like a hatchet job and if so, I certainly won’t be buying a certain tackle company’s products again. Shameful.
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I couldn't agree more
I was pondering what potentially is this most heinous of crimes if ever proven?
Did he bang the fish on the head?
Did it go belly up after the ' incident'?
Did he put it in a keepnet?
Did he fraudulently claim a record or capture?
No - he may or may not have set up a fish to be re-caught for the camera, but we don't know.
Do we really know what goes on behind the scenes on these film shoots?

Ain't none of us perfect and this sanctimonious attitude of some does my nut in.
How many of us have missed a fish at the net, only for it to charge off again and get a second wind, Left to recover properly, they should all swim off strongly. But this is probably no different in terms of stress to the fish, to what MB is alleged to have done.
Or as Nick says, get a repeat capture? Should we have moved swims to mitigate the risk?
Or fished when the water is too warm?
Or fished too close to a snag and lost a fish?
Or left a baitrunner screaming only for the fish to end up in a snag, cos we're on the phone or blabbing to a mate in the next swim?
Or are too lazy to check the line and wonder why it parts under pressure?

If you've never dropped a clanger, then you've not fished very much and I guess you can take the high moral ground.. I can't. But I have learnt from my mistakes.

I don't know Martin Bowler, I've spoken to him a few times and he comes across as " what you see is what you get" type of bloke. I think that's his appeal - he's one of us. I don't for one second think he would knowingly harm a barbel. I must have also missed when he became a holy deity complete with Halo and as such is infallible.
IF he did what is suggested, I would wager that if we could measure ' stress' in a fish, he could probably land and " re-hook" ( whatever that means) a barbel and cause it less stress than the vast majority of people that fish for barbel, due to his unquestionable skill and experience.

We all stick hooks in them and we all make mistakes.
 
Paul Richardson said:
I couldn't agree more
I was pondering what potentially is this most heinous of crimes if ever proven?
Did he bang the fish on the head?
Did it go belly up after the ' incident'?
Did he put it in a keepnet?
Did he fraudulently claim a record or capture?
No - he may or may not have set up a fish to be re-caught for the camera, but we don't know.
Do we really know what goes on behind the scenes on these film shoots?

Ain't none of us perfect and this sanctimonious attitude of some does my nut in.
How many of us have missed a fish at the net, only for it to charge off again and get a second wind, Left to recover properly, they should all swim off strongly. But this is probably no different in terms of stress to the fish, to what MB is alleged to have done.
Or as Nick says, get a repeat capture? Should we have moved swims to mitigate the risk?
Or fished when the water is too warm?
Or fished too close to a snag and lost a fish?
Or left a baitrunner screaming only for the fish to end up in a snag, cos we're on the phone or blabbing to a mate in the next swim?
Or are too lazy to check the line and wonder why it parts under pressure?

If you've never dropped a clanger, then you've not fished very much and I guess you can take the high moral ground.. I can't. But I have learnt from my mistakes.

I don't know Martin Bowler, I've spoken to him a few times and he comes across as " what you see is what you get" type of bloke. I think that's his appeal - he's one of us. I don't for one second think he would knowingly harm a barbel. I must have also missed when he became a holy deity complete with Halo and as such is infallible.
IF he did what is suggested, I would wager that if we could measure ' stress' in a fish, he could probably land and " re-hook" ( whatever that means) a barbel and cause it less stress than the vast majority of people that fish for barbel, due to his unquestionable skill and experience.

We all stick hooks in them and we all make mistakes.
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I take what you're saying but do you not think there's a difference between making a mistake and intentionally doing something? Presumably you didn't stand in your mates swim and knowingly let the fish keep running, or think 'there's probably a 90% chance I'll loose this fish in a snag but I'll do it anyway'.

If it's ok then why does he say don't tell anyone.

I've caught the same barbel in a day, in the summer after having absolutely bagged up. At the end of the day I reflected on it and my dad and I didn't fish the stretch for the next two days, despite having paid for the tickets. We did that so the fish could have a break from a summer long continuous hammering.

I'm not pretending not to have made mistakes. I've made most of them, but not as a conscious decision, after a conversation and thought sod it I'll do it anyway.

Right and wrong is never going to be clear cut, or the same for everyone so I guess we'll all have different opinions of how bad it is. For me, it's not acceptable and it's worse because it's (potentially) Martin Bowler and it's not something I would ever have expected from him. I'm not alone in this either as every friend I've spoken to about it, who are all Martin Bowler fans have been seriously unimpressed.

The timing of it is bad though and seems seriously underhand. Sadly, I think if it is true it will have the desired affect.
 
Christian Tyroll said:
I take what you're saying but do you not think there's a difference between making a mistake and intentionally doing something? Presumably you didn't stand in your mates swim and knowingly let the fish keep running, or think 'there's probably a 90% chance I'll loose this fish in a snag but I'll do it anyway'.

If it's ok then why does he say don't tell anyone.

I've caught the same barbel in a day, in the summer after having absolutely bagged up. At the end of the day I reflected on it and my dad and I didn't fish the stretch for the next two days, despite having paid for the tickets. We did that so the fish could have a break from a summer long continuous hammering.

I'm not pretending not to have made mistakes. I've made most of them, but not as a conscious decision, after a conversation and thought sod it I'll do it anyway.

Right and wrong is never going to be clear cut, or the same for everyone so I guess we'll all have different opinions of how bad it is. For me, it's not acceptable and it's worse because it's (potentially) Martin Bowler and it's not something I would ever have expected from him. I'm not alone in this either as every friend I've spoken to about it, who are all Martin Bowler fans have been seriously unimpressed.

The timing of it is bad though and seems seriously underhand. Sadly, I think if it is true it will have the desired affect.
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He may or may not have made a mistake. I'm not impressed if he has done it but it wouldn't fundamentally change my opinion of him.
Not so much with barbel, but yes, back in the day I would fish way too many pike rods at a time and have them too far apart and I did it knowingly.
I used livebaits when they were forbidden, transported them without a permit, fished nature reserves.....
It was wrong, I was stupid and I see the error of my ways. That's why I'm in no position to judge anyone, famous or not.
Not even Nige Williams... but that's another story.
 
Joe Winstanley said:
Agreed. The timing of this to coincide with the launch of FishFlix smells pretty rotten. It has all the look and feel of shithousery driven by commercial greed, rather than a moral stand against an alleged bad practice.
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The story I heard is, it all personal, MB was drifted from drennan for a long time, and someone work at drennan has some issue with him. Then the video is discovered and someone took the revenge…
 
A final thought from me on it, the difference with live baiting for me is that is has a purpose in a days conventional fishing. Putting a fish back out to play it again is just for commercial purposes, fabricating perfection to encourage us to part with cash. If that what it takes to get the content then that's good to know, I will just choose to vote with my feet/ wallet/ mouse. I can see there's a question between well is that any more or less acceptable than an individuals private enjoyment from catching a pike on a live bait? For me it is different and that's why I will probably choose to stop supporting content if the accusations are true. I don't subscribe to Cypography because I don't want to put money in Jim Shelleys pocket. Although I'm not suddenly putting MB in his boat.
 
Whereas I don't support this type of behaviour, we shouldn't loose sight of the fact that we are all out there putting hooks into fishes mouths, if we were THAT concerned about fish welfare, none of us would be angling......

Martin has made an excellent contribution to angling over the years, I amongst most of you I am sure have taken great pleasure from watching his work. Making good videos must have it's pitfalls.

I hope this doesn't turn into yet another social media witch hunt.
 
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Chris Cheshire said:
Whereas I don't support this type of behaviour, we shouldn't loose sight of the fact that we are all out there putting hooks into fishes mouths, if we were THAT concerned about fish welfare, none of us would be angling......

Martin has made an excellent contribution to angling over the years, I amongst most of you I am sure have taken great pleasure from watching his work. Making good videos must have it's pitfalls.

I hope this doesn't turn into yet another social media witch hunt.
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Yeah can't ignore the fact that we're hooking them and pulling them out of their habitat in the first place. However most of us do it in a way to minmize stress and the toll that is placed on the fish in particular with barbel. We use mats, fish friendly nets, healing gels etc.

Whilst its hardly crime of the century, rehooking fish is just not necessary and obviously should never happen. It does the sport of angling no favours.

Not sure what happens with Bowler now. From the grief he's getting on SM (some of justifiable) I can see him jacking it all in
 
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I’m not defending not agreeing nor disagreeing, I’m on the fence to this washes out completely and will make my own mind up.

But something I do reamber is him saying publicly that a couple of his last films whilst under contract with said company’s he didn’t and they didn’t agree with the style etc and that he wanted to do things on his own terms… maybe this was what he was alluding to the constant pressure to perform under oath to make money… we all do it in our jobs and move around to take on different work due to our own work ethics.

There’s many ways to skin a cat so to speak and no matter what everyone will have there own opinion on it, I just hope this does not destroy people in the process as that’s not what it’s about.

There is clearly many axes being grind and a life’s work on the line so I have respect for him in that regard it must be a very stressful time.
 
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