An excellent article by Philip, no doubt about that, and some of his points I agree with 100%. However, I disagree with several of the points he makes. Or at least I have to disagree to some extent.
Again, I’ll comment point by point.
First though, I recognise now that the title of my article,
‘Has the Skill Gone out of Fishing?’ is the cause of much of the misunderstandings that have arisen. The original article was written for Coarse Fisherman magazine several years ago and it was their choice of title, not mine. The FM article was a complete and updated rewrite of that but I kept the title, which was a mistake. I should have altered it to, ‘Has
Some of the Skill gone out of Fishing’. Which puts a different light on things and will perhaps change the minds of some who have grasped the title with both hands and posted entirely on that basis rather than the body of the article. I’m sure some have posted without actually reading further than the title.
Philip wrote: (Graham suggests that)
"……anyone can now be an expert by picking up any number of magazines or DVDs on offer and copying the next guy.”
No I
didn’t write that, I wrote: “With the aid of newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, DVDs and the internet, the world is a much, much smaller place than it used to be and budding anglers can soak up years of experience in a very short time indeed.”
Gaining experience in a short time is much, much different to becoming an expert.
Philip:
“If……fishing has become as Graham suggests, nothing more than a lottery with each angler just waiting for their turn for the buzzer to sound, then how come we still see majority of the fish being caught by the minority of the anglers?”
Because better anglers will still do everything better in spite of the waters, the tackle, the bait, and the knowledge being presented on a plate for them. You can get everything ‘off the shelf’, both literally and figuratively these days. Travel, even worldwide is easier so you can get to more and better venues, all the tackle and bait (all those varieties of pellets and boilies!) you’ll ever need can be bought from a tackle shop or on line. And as for knowledge; newspapers, more fishing magazines than we’ve ever had, videos, DVDs, websites, podcasts, forums, blogs, ebooks……..
There is no way I’m suggesting that there is now no skill required in fishing, but by Christ you’ve got a hell of head start in acquiring the necessary skill and maintaining it than you had a few decades ago.
Philip:
“Graham suggests that the ultimate rig is with us, the bolt rig. We have evolved our tactics to the point where we now have a rig upon which the fish hook themselves; the angler has become an accessory to the catching. The bolt rig has replaced the individual skills of the angler, a case of hail the king, the bolt rig has arrived! But has it really ...or was it with us all along anyway?”
Again, Philip is attributing words to me that I
never used. I never once described the bolt rig as the ‘ultimate’ rig. I described it as the ‘optimum’ rig. Optimum means ‘most favourable or advantageous’, which suggests we still have options, while ultimate suggests there is nothing else. Or as Philip says (see later),
“The ultimate rig would catch every fish every time we cast it in.”
Philip asks if the bolt rig has been with us all along. And then launches into a big list of methods that utilise the bolt rig principle, methods that in some way offer some form of resistance to the fish when they take the bait.
Of course the bolt rig principle has been with us all along! Every tackle we use offers some degree of resistance, and often enough of it to cause the fish to bolt. But it needed someone to recognise the advantage of resistance if it was offered in the right way and develop / evolve it to the degree you see it today. There is a big difference in fish hooking themselves against a few split shot on a float rig and hooking themselves on a tackle designed to do just that with a relatively short hook link attached to a 4oz lead!
Philip:
“You could actually argue that anglers today are demonstrating greater skills as they understand why the rigs are working as they do rather than fishing in ignorance like their predecessors 30 years back.”
That’s like saying the Wright brothers, Cayley, Langley, Lilienthal, et al, who invented / developed aircraft knew less about flight than the people who fly in planes today. Wasn’t it the predecessors who invented / evolved the bolt rig over the years and therefore demonstrated a true understanding? The modern angler just uses it.
Philip:
“As for the point about the bolt rig being the ultimate rig, I would say that such a thing does not exist. The ultimate rig would catch every fish every time we cast it in. It’s clearly not the bolt rig and let’s hope such a rig never arrives.”
Well, we agree there. That’s why I
never said it was the ultimate rig.
Philip:
“Graham suggests changes to modern setups have become nothing more than “mere variables”. He suggests in the associated forum thread that a bolt rig is only about picking the right weight of lead and correct length of hook link. But is it really? What about the hooking arrangement? What about the length of the hair? What about the position of the hair in relation to the hook? What about the model of hook? What about the position of the bait on the hair? What about not using a hair?” He continues with several more paragraphs about how you can alter the hair rig.
The bolt rig and the hair rig are two different things. My comments about the bolt rig are solely about that. You can use the hair rig with any kind of rig; running, free-lining, float fishing, etc. It’s the bolt rig / hair rig combination, in its various guises, that has become the optimum rig.
Philip:
“But what is a boilie? How about this as a reasonable general definition: “a combination of ingredients rolled into a ball and boiled? I'll say that again : “a combination of ingredients” rolled into a ball and boiled. The point is, not all boilies are the same and we still have to pick and choose the one that’s right on the day.”
I agree, but it doesn’t change the point I made that boilies and pellets are the optimum bait of the modern angler.
Philip then writes several paragraphs about targeting specific species and that it was no different yesteryear.
Consider this then:
1. An angler fishes pellets on 10lb line, offered on a bolt rig / hair rig combination all season round, catching barbel and chub.
2. An angler fishes the same way for barbel in summer and then fishes bread flake on a light leger or cage feeder and 5lb line in winter to catch chub.
Question: Which angler is specifically targeting barbel in summer and chub in winter and therefore showing a greater range of skills?
Philip then writes several more paragraphs about watercraft now and then, but my article was about the standard (optimum) rig and bait.
Philip:
“The fact is there will be 1000001 things that could be defined an angling skill so when someone talks about the loss of angling skills what exactly do they mean?”
Well, I meant that most anglers today fish with the optimum (standard) rig and bait which is bolt rig / hair rig, boilie / pellet for most bottom feeding fish and that they don’t have much imagination when it comes to anything else.
Philip:
“The fact is just about every writer (including Graham) who bemoans the loss of angling skills always fails to mention that the modern angler has had to acquire a whole NEW set of skills to be successful.”
I didn’t bemoan anything, I commented on the fact that many of today’s anglers look no further than the standard method and standard bait, whatever they’re fishing for, apart from predators.
Philip:
“In my opinion however, whilst advances will continue to be made the one thing that will ensure the ultimate rig or bait will never come into widespread use is the anglers themselves. Why? Because if the challenge and anticipation of the sport disappears no one will be interested anymore and fishing will cease to exist. So even if the optimum method or bait did arrive I suspect the majority of anglers would turn their back on it as there would be no merit or challenge in using it."
The ultimate method and bait will never arrive, on that I do agree.
However, the optimum method and bait has already arrived and angling is much less popular than it was. Of course this isn’t all down to the standard method and bait, but it’s played its part. Fortunately anglers still have a choice, they don’t have to fish any particular method and bait and can choose to target specific species with a variety of methods and baits. It's already happening but this will be more of a trend in future years as anglers realise that it’s not all about using the most efficient method and bait; not all about the catch. It’s also about how much enjoyment you get whilst fishing, which is why many anglers, for instance, choose to float fish at times when they know they could catch more fish by legering.
Philip:
“The bottom line is that the modern angler is catching a fish that could not be caught before so you have to wonder how at the same time he can also be considered to be losing skills or being less skilful than his counterpart 30 years earlier?”
I agree, the modern angler is indeed catching fish that were much more difficult to catch before. And that’s due to us arriving at the optimum method and bait that was developed by a previous generation and has consequently made things so much easier for today’s angler.
