Attitude of the younguns

[Barbz]

I no we have discussed the instant carper etc to death on the forum but just wanted to mention something i discovered yesterday on a quick afternoon session.

We talk about all the glossy mags advertising baits and kit (and those that know me knwo im a sucker for camo, so im almost as bad to an extent) And the Big fish hunter attitude of the instant carper, bigger is the only recognisable or noteworthy skill in carping.

Have we ever considered the effect of this menality on the nippers just starting out in the hobbby?

.................A yound lad, mayb between 10 - 12 came over to me on a club water yesterday and proceeded to tell me he has only been fishing for 3 months, and hes only ever fished for carp. He didn want to know any tips or advice etc, he had a copy of total carp under one arm, and he then proceeded to ask me 3 things,

My PB, What bait i was using, What gear I had and how much it cost. before proceeding to tell me what he had. Before leaving to repeat the same questions to the next angler.

I was shocked by this attitude of someone so young as him, the passion was all about the gear, not the actual fishing.

have any other members of the forum experienced this and is the shape of things to come and the future of carping.

[Jay&Silent Bob]

Doesn't surprise me at all considering how the magazines portray tackle and then take into consideration carpers themselves who go on about they have the best rods,stainless,reels ect ect.(see tackle tart threads or peoples setup threads!!!) What can we expect but the young to look at it and think I must have all the best kit too,it then becomes less about angling and more of a fashion statement!

[MANAGER]

It's a bit like cars isn't it?
What car do you have, how fast is it, how fast have you been, does it have.......?

TARTS.

Must keep up with the Joneses (or Blackys)
It's the British way, MUST HAVE, AND I WANT IT NOW!
Do you know of anyone who does not have a mobile phone, and is it really needed?

I digress, but thinking back, the best, most consistent catchers of carp I have met over the last 25 years all use old well worn tackle, and don't change anything unless it's broken.


Rushing this, going out.

[Oldfellah]

In the aerly days an angler would start fishing for just about anything that came along such as roach, gudgeon, perch, etc and gradually developed skills and interests that could eventually lead to speciman hunting and perhaps carp fishing. Before they reached the speciman hunter stage those with just a passing interest would drop by the wayside leading only those with a real passion for their fishing. These days it only takes a visa card to become a 'carp angler' and to be seen with the best tackle is like a badge of status.......crap gear - crap angler, great gear - great angler !!!
As they are not real anglers they soon will get fed up sitting behind their latest tackle 'with nothing to do' so perhaps throwing stones, getting ****ed, having a bit of fun annoying another angler is just the ticket for curing the boredom.
Sad really

[Mutley]

I spent 20 years fishing for bits, it's only the last 5 years or so that I've started targeting carp.

Fishing for carp was the pinnacle when I was a kid, I remember going to Roman Lakes with the scouts when I was 14, and seeing a guy carping, he had 2 out I think, and people just gathered round and stood there in awe.

I was like wow, that's brilliant. Needless to say I carried on fishing for roach and was happy if I had 40 fish out in a day.

Nowadays people just skip straight past that and dive right into carping, thinking it's as easy as finding some wonder material hooklink, some wonder bait, or some wonder ingredient to put in their base mix. Watercraft is the last thing they want to learn, as it's takes the most effort, and most of all it takes time. You can't buy it in a tin from mainline, so they don't want to know. As long as they've got 2k sat on their pod and they look good, and they have the latest super-bait presented on the latest wonder stretch hooklink they think it's job done.

They have no idea what a reel is like without a bait-runner on it, 1lb line is used for tying up a PVA bag, tell someone to use a basic ledger running rig and they're like, eh?, it has to be a semi-fixed rig.

Anyway, rant over.

[Stig]

We are again getting into realms of the apprenticeship debate again.

However to come back to Barbz post and the questions he was asked.

1) Whats your PB
If anyone asks me that one i size em up and if i think they are a noddy tackle tart i give them my best PB 1st and that is a 6oz unclaimed british record Gudgeon .
I then ramble on through the 14lb 3oz bream,12lb 6oz tench
and on and on until i come to the end of all the biggest fish of every species including game & sea fish but carefully avoiding good old Carp altogether.

Then they say

" No whats your PB carp "

" Dunno i unhook em in the water and let em go straight away "

To which they usually stomp off with words something along the lines of

" effing wierdo dont weigh his carp but weighs everything else "

And tackle i tell em a bought the lot for a tenner from a car boot sale .

I think the latin phrase is something like :

" Piscator non solum piscator "(How correct that is when written i dont know as i have only ever heard it said )

Which roughly translated means

" There is more to fishing than catching fish "

[Joephus]

Could it not be more down to the change in carp fishing, it used to be the pinnicale of angling, the uncatchable. Now with day tickets and carp mags theres no need to start on the small easy stuff, as theres big (10lb) and easy. Muddy holes where 20 carp in a day is easy.

I started on the bits and worked my way up over time but doubt many will anymore.

[Stig]

Originally Posted by Joephus

Could it not be more down to the change in carp fishing, it used to be the pinnicale of angling, the uncatchable. Now with day tickets and carp mags theres no need to start on the small easy stuff, as theres big (10lb) and easy. Muddy holes where 20 carp in a day is easy.

I started on the bits and worked my way up over time but doubt many will anymore.

But what about the skill honed by progresivley catching larger fish the technique aquired playing bigger and bigger fish on light-lightish tackle .The watercraft which cannot be taught it has to be learnt by doing it yourself a mentor can only point you in the righht direction and though now heading along the correct road you have to fine tune everything else for yourself .

The deigner label addicted instant carpers of this day and age are simply fish at all costs . Lets all go out and look cool on the bank freeze our naggers off but with our expensive clothes and our most expensive gear but i've got no idea tackle we will look the Mutz nutz on the bank.

Oh and how ****** off they get when some older geezer in his dirty cammo jacket ,old rod etc comes down and banks 3 or 4 in a couple of hours as he knows what he's doing and where the fish will be from years of practise .Watercraft and local knoweledge will outfish all the most expensive and supposedly best gear in the world every time

[bigted]

At the end of the day it's in there nature to be fickle, latest XBOX, trainers, whatever, it's up to us to try and educate and enlighten.
Like some one said previously the amount of dross in the mags and the ethos of bigger is better no wonder these young un's are the way they are, However, I can remember as a nipper looking at an old guy's mitchell 300 with total envy ....one day it will be mine kind of thing, but you got told and corrected I suppose back then it was a mitchell and a three pound perch now it's a basia and a 30lb carp, I guess time moves on and we're not all that different, also were dose it end? I know of a few lads in there mid 30's that are parcial to a bit of bling myself included

[IanB]

[quote=Barbz;97978]
Have we ever considered the effect of this menality on the nippers just starting out in the hobbby?
.................A yound lad, mayb between 10 - 12 came over to me on a club water yesterday and proceeded to tell me he has only been fishing for 3 months, and hes only ever fished for carp. He didn want to know any tips or advice etc, he had a copy of total carp under one arm, and he then proceeded to ask me 3 things,
My PB, What bait i was using, What gear I had and how much it cost. before proceeding to tell me what he had. Before leaving to repeat the same questions to the next angler.
I was shocked by this attitude of someone so young as him, the passion was all about the gear, not the actual fishing.
QUOTE]

Sadly that sums a very large percentage of modern day carp "anglers" attitudes. and probably modern society - its the way it is like it lump it cause it wont change.

[MANAGER]

Originally Posted by Oldfellah

These days it only takes a visa card to become a 'carp angler' (

It's mildly frustrating for me when I see parents buying the latest top of the range tackle for their teenage or pre-teenage offspring when I'm on a budget, but don't change tackle for the sake of it anyway, (although that's probably an inbred money-is-tight reason).

The reasons some of us worked our way up to carp fishing after perch, roach,tench etc is because when we were younger,(I'm 56), carp were just not available to fish for, any that were caught were usually by accident.
However, we always liked to catch the biggest fish possible, I personally started targeting carp more in the early 80's when I realised they were so easy to catch in winter, compared to other species that is.
Over the last 5 years I've spent more time and enjoyment with a float rod out than a carp rod.

Instant carp anglers exist because that's what all the course fishing magazines tell them to fish for, whether it be quantity on a commercial fishery, or quality on some other water.
I'm only glad that some of the magazines say that the writer blanked, or caught a low double, which puts it in perspective.
As was posted previously, "instant" carp anglers are the present and the future of our sport, but there will also be anglers who have started on the silver fish first and worked up to carp. They can often be spotted on their seat boxes with a float rod out, and a carp rod on a cheap buzzer "just in case". That seems like me 25 years ago, or even now come to think of it, with the carp rods out, and the float rod "just in case".

I rarely buy fishing mags, but can't wait for next month's issues of
Perchology, Roachtalk, Crafty crucianer and Total tench.








Re; my first post, sorry Blacky, I meant keeping up with Barbz.

[Joephus]

Are the people on this forum that different from that kid? Take a look at the 'your setup' thread.

[nicholaswynn]

at least some of the young anglers are starting fishing. we in our sport need the younger angler yes thers going to be some right plonkers but isnt there some right [old] plonkers. in a way its up to US to show them the right way and thats not going to be easy, but at least their of the streets robing our houses.

[peterpike]

does it really matter what tackle they,ve got?i,m in the "OLD FOSSIL" BRACKET MYSELF(49)AND WHEN I,M NOT FISHING,I USUALLY WALK AROUND MY LOCAL VENUE,STOPPING TO TALK TO ANGLERS YOUNG AND OLD.MOST OF THE YOUNGSTERS I TALK TO ARE VERY COURTIOUS AND POLITE.I THINK ITS GREAT TO SEE EM FISHING FULL STOP.

[steve hurst]

It was exactly the same when Kevin Maddocks released Carp Fever 24 years ago mate...