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Why?

Chris Jones

Chris Jones

Senior Member
Why is it that some folks simply can't accept that there are plenty of ways of skinning a fishing cat? I've no objection to debate getting a little heated occasionally but it bores me stupid when people try to tell other people that they are wrong to do something perfectly legal.

Bite alarms, 2lb+ TC rods, prebaiting, fishing too light, fishing too heavy, boilies, braid, flurocarbon, carbon fibre rods, split can rods, baitrunners, non-baitrunners, types of landing net, rod pods, bivvies, unhooking mats etc, etc, can all elicit the kind of response that are simply ridiculous. Who exactly is it that decided what's right or wrong anyway? Who was it that died and left them to be the arbiters of fishing rights and wrongs?

Can't we all just accept that we may do things a certain way but that doesn't mean it's the only way? There simply isn't one true path, no matter how much some folks would wish us to believe there is.

Get on with your fishing and, hopefully, catch some fish. Allow others the same courtesy to do the same, even if they do go about it in a different way.
 
Can't argue with that!

Except,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,only kidding :D

You're right Chris, too much snobbery in the sport. I visit Carp fishing forums where anglers that don't sit behind bite alarms for days on end are referred to as "Noddies". This irritates me beyond belief. The majority of people doing the name calling have probably never ran a stick through a glide or would have no idea how to plumb a waggler to show a lift bite.

I use two rods for my Barbel fishing where rules allow and where it's practical to do so. I also tend to use bite alarms. Some people frown upon this practise, I, on the other hand, couldn't give a flying fig how they go about things.

Leave me alone and expect the same courtesy!

One thing I will say, using split cane is soooo wrong :D
 
I know a bloke who used his glass beachcasters and self-cast 3- to 8-ounce cod-leads for fishing a flooded Thames for barbel in the early to mid 1960s (I saw him do it when I was knee-high to a bankstick). Terrible, of course, but he did a) catch fish, and b) is still alive today at nearly 88. Heathen.
 
Paul Boote said:
I know a bloke who used his glass beachcasters and self-cast 3- to 8-ounce cod-leads for fishing a flooded Thames for barbel in the early to mid 1960s (I saw him do it when I was knee-high to a bankstick). Terrible, of course, but he did a) catch fish, and b) is still alive today at nearly 88. Heathen.
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Over-gunned is better than under-gunned!

You're right though, if today's "Barbel police" had caught him, he'd have got life with hard labour:eek:
 
Chris Jones said:
Why is it that some folks simply can't accept that there are plenty of ways of skinning a fishing cat? I've no objection to debate getting a little heated occasionally but it bores me stupid when people try to tell other people that they are wrong to do something perfectly legal.

Bite alarms, 2lb+ TC rods, prebaiting, fishing too light, fishing too heavy, boilies, braid, flurocarbon, carbon fibre rods, split can rods, baitrunners, non-baitrunners, types of landing net, rod pods, bivvies, unhooking mats etc, etc, can all elicit the kind of response that are simply ridiculous. Who exactly is it that decided what's right or wrong anyway? Who was it that died and left them to be the arbiters of fishing rights and wrongs?

Can't we all just accept that we may do things a certain way but that doesn't mean it's the only way? There simply isn't one true path, no matter how much some folks would wish us to believe there is.

Get on with your fishing and, hopefully, catch some fish. Allow others the same courtesy to do the same, even if they do go about it in a different way.
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“hell is other peopleâ€
Jean-Paul Sartre
 
gentleman's

I agree with Chris absolutely....within the limited scope mentioned. However, there must be exceptions and regulations, as in all things :D

It IS surely everyone's right to fish how they see fit, without being criticised or picked on in any way....PROVIDED they don't break any rules, or do any harm to anything (living or not)...and equally importantly, that they do not interfere in any way with any other angler.

I suppose that there is little doubt that Chris's thread was prompted in part at least by Tony Rocca's recent criticism of the heavy baiting campaign carried out by Jeremy Evans on the middle Severn, which debate illustrates my take on this contentious issue quite nicely (for what it's worth :rolleyes:)

Tony was complaining because in his opinion, Jeremy is spoiling the chances of other anglers by hugely over baiting certain swims in a stretch of that river. Jeremy on the other hand maintains that he has not spoilt anyone else's fishing, firstly because he has made new swims in a previously virtually unfished stretch which is several hundred yards away from any recognized swims, and secondly that the amount of bait introduced was not excessive in the circumstances and over the time scale involved.

Obviously, if Tony is right, then Jeremy HAS stepped over the line....and he is wrong for doing that. However, If Jeremy is right, and Tony's complaint is based solely on a perceived affront to his 'gentleman's code of conduct'....or in other words his opinions of how barbel fishing should be conducted...then perhaps Tony was in the wrong...perhaps it would have been better not to bring it up in such a way? Who knows?...I am certainly in no position to judge, and have no intention of doing so.

We are all entitled to our own views, but I find barbel fishing seems to generate more rows, arguments and hard bitten opinions than any other branch of our sport that I have ever been involved in....and I have no idea why.

But then, what the hell do I know? Perhaps if we didn't all have these varying views on virtually everything, it would be a boring old world...and maybe we wouldn't need a forum in that case? :D:D:D

Tight lines to all for the new season.

Cheers, Dave.
 
David Gauntlett said:
We are all entitled to our own views, but I find barbel fishing seems to generate more rows, arguments and hard bitten opinions than any other branch of our sport that I have ever been involved in....and I have no idea why.
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Not merely barbel, Dave, but in any field of Angling that has suddenly been given the full media and commercial treatment and then taken up by many more fishers than it had previously. We all saw it happen in carp fishing, to the point where the activity ceased to be a must-do for the thinking Angler and became a "not with somebody else's" . I have seen it, to the point of in your face, on your case, Internut and Real World "Shaddup!", particularly in mahseer and sea-trout fishing, the newbies naked in their new Messianic robes and ambition shouting down and taking on anyone who has been doing it longer than they have and has forgotten much of what they still yet have to learn. Goes with the modern societal territory, unfortunately - those who shout the loudest and get their t1ts out running with stuff until they're eventually rumbled.
 
i was reading your old posts on a sea trout fishing forum last night, most interesting...lol
 
Oh yes, there were some great ones - Massed Newbies v. The Boote - my very presence on such sites being enough to start them off. They duly were fried, grilled, baked, gravlaxed and smoked (as well as merely gutted then hung out to dry).
 
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Nice thread Chris, nice first reply Bob. Now count the posts and see how many it takes until we have ''snobbery in the sport'', and I'm right, more knowlegable, my fishing is better blah blah blah, than you lot, and nearly everyone else for that matter. Lovely illustration of what Chris and Bob were trying to say.
Roll on autumn, a small stretch of a quiet river in Sussex and...........
 
chris,
good subject thread, that said though.. i think your 'kinda' right. especially the experianced anglers, but i think there are a lot of anglers though new to barbel fishing & look for help. just look at the 'member status' under their name.
each their own
 
I think you are right Neil. I found this site incredibly helpful when I first found it. Loads of modern stuff I knew nothing about. For some it just has to descend into point scoring, antogonism, and I have always been right, wronged, the best, mistreated, misunderstood................
 
What Angling's about, Shaun, isn't the One True Way or Longer Experience and Superior Knowledge trump any New Boys on the Block, but about learning, sharing and respect (for the fish, for our pastime in its entirety, for one's fellow Anglers), about realising that you are just a small part in a large, highly complex structure. I learned a huge amount from my Angling elders and betters when I was a kid - on the written page and face to face with names and no-names on many a riverbank. I respected those men enormously back then (still do), I wouldn't have dreamt of telling tales about them or running them down them once I had had some decent fish myself (having fallen into the trap of thinking that I knew it all). Too many today, in both Angling and in Life, believe that they can rewrite the past, erase inconvenient truths, delete any unwanted yesterdays. Perilous activities these, as they have a way of destroying many other people's much-hoped-for better tomorrows.
 
Cracking post Paul, one of your best in my humble opinion.
Off to work now, Royal Ascot, and the despised late shift.
Roll on aut.... looking outside I think it is here. Where did I leave my Shakespeare power avon?
 
Beautiful animals. Seen two (very briefly) beside two Himalayan mahseer rivers, both fishing entering, overgrown, forest brooks. B'stards!
 
Paul Boote said:
Beautiful animals. Seen two (very briefly) beside two Himalayan mahseer rivers, both fishing entering, overgrown, forest brooks. B'stards!
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Fishing_Cat_Pessac_zoo.jpg
 
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