The recent and popular BBC series on Grumpy Old Men, and the follow-up forum on FISHINGmagic, got me thinking. Sadly, I qualify for the age range when men are at their grumpiest, which is from 35 to 54. In later years, us grumps are supposed to mellow, a little bit anyway. Over to you, Rontroversial Clay and Magic Marsden, are you mellowing? But aside from the everyday aspects of life that make us grumpy, like pierced belly buttons – just what is the point?, what aspects of modern fishing get our goat? Here’s just a few to get you GO(F)M rumbling….
The late and great Billy Lane
Extra Long Poles I don’t believe it! Twenty metre poles? Costing how much? Four thousand quid! Listen, when I was young, no hang on, Sowerbutts is what our granddads used. Anyway, poles were much shorter, twenty feet not metres. Only that Ray Mumford ever took them seriously, trying to get into the England team when he was Welsh all the time. Twenty metres fishing ten foot of water. Talk about confused. Damned rubbish metric nonsense. Trouble is us GO(F)M can’t even see the tip of a pole float that far away never mind hold a pole that long. It’s me bad back you see. What do you mean that Bob Nudd’s over fifty, what and holding a pole like that all day. Good luck to him.
Youth of Today Don’t know they’re born, half of ’em. Walk into a tackle shop with two grand. Three matching carp rods and reels, electronic this and that, ready-made bait, landing net big enough for a whale. March down to some lake stocked to the eyeballs with big carp. What’s wrong with silver paper and parboiled potatoes like Walker used? Got bivvies today the size of a marquee, TV inside, beds. What do you mean? Walker had a purpose built fishing hut on the Ouse? Not quite the same is it? All right, it is the same, but Walker made his own rods and landing net, oh and bite alarms. At first, anyway. When I said march down to the lake, I meant drive; they take so much it takes three trips with a huge trolley.
Invented specimen hunting Call themselves pioneers. Pah! We invented specimen hunting, following in the steps of Walker, Stone and Guttfield, plus whippersnappers like Marsden. Came up with sensible groups like the Central Rutland Area Piscators, membership was my brother, my mate and me. None of this The Circus nonsense. What do you mean J W Martin, F W K Wallis, Captain Parker, Bill Warren, Bill Penney were all specimen hunters? I suppose they were, but they don’t count because they weren’t in proper groups like us. Maybe these modern anglers do catch more big fish than we did but at least we looked the part, all matt black rods, reels, everything, never could find anything in the dark, still none of this fancy graphics.
Proper Fish We fished for proper fish in them days. What do they go for today – load of poncy overgrown goldfish and continental rejects – ide, ghost carp, grass carp, zander, catfish. Proper fish and proper fishing. Can’t even see where the enjoyment is anymore, we invented the fun part of fishing. Our fathers might have fished for the pot but we made sport out of it. We had skill we did, could trot a float down the middle of a river. This lot don’t even own floats. We had proper floats as well, porcupine quills and cork Thames floats. I suppose it did take that Drennan fellow to lead the way. Shame he gave us plastic floats, nothing wrong with a simple bird quill. Skill and fun, those were the days.
Proper Bait Maggots, bread, caddis grubs, worms, they were proper baits. None of this stuff in plastic pots and bags. Crab flavour? How does a chub get to like crab? Does he go on holiday to Southend? Half a pint of mixed is good enough for anything. Now we’ve got artificial plastic stuff. Feed ’em up I say, they weigh more when you catch ’em. Even allow hemp now, used to be banned. Grows underwater you know, poisons the fish, they get addicted. Now the latest craze is pellets. What are they trying to do? Grow ’em on to be monsters? They are monsters, today mind, shame I can’t catch ’em on my half a pint of maggots. Though don’t believe half the pictures in the weeklies, all this digital nonsense. Make a fish as big as you like.
British Fishing tackle Look at where your fishing gear is made nowadays. Rods from Japan, reels from China, hooks from Japan. Remember when fishing tackle came from Redditch? We had superb rods made from whole cane with a nice top-heavy solid glass top.
Intrepid reels. Wicker baskets made from real willow in Somerset. Lovely soft cotton keepnets with proper knots. Lead split shot in tin boxes. Hooks that were actually whipped to the nylon. What fantastic stuff to fish with! What do you mean we were actually using French and Swedish reels? Line from Germany? Hooks from Norway? Only because the British stuff was made for beginners.
Real match fishing Comes to something when winter leagues are only 80 pegs – wasn’t it 120 minimum? And opens qualify for Kamasan points at just 50 – remember when they were 100. Kevin Ashurst reckoned matches didn’t count at less than 300 pegs, and that winning the all star Gladding Masters with 40 pegs as “Nowt but a little sweep”. Ivan Marks made his name with three wins out of four in the Great Ouse championship with over a thousand competing each time. Mind you, look at Scotthorne’s record in the World champs. Matching Nudd’s four wins, and hungry for more – look out. But at this rate open match fishing could disappear altogether. No wonder John Dean and Billy Makin gave up, less than 300 pegs would have been too easy for them. Modern match anglers, Pah! Load of tackle tarts with poleitis, though with all the young anglers carp fishing, most of them are GO(F)M.
TV anglers Matt Hayes, who does he think he is? We had Jack Hargreaves. All barely in focus. So the fish were often hooked on in those days but we didn’t get Wilson’s inane giggling (Is he drunk?) and third person references, or the Royal “We”. Good to see him in a blind panic when his rod snaps in half. Bet the camera crew wet themselves. At least the modern ones can fish a bit. As kids, we thought Hargreaves and the cronies he had on there were fishing gods. Only later when old repeats were screened did we realise how cack-handed they were, climbing up the rod to unhook a fish. Who’d be a TV angling star?
Fishing Close Together These modern ‘Commercials’, pegs five yards apart. Never saw us fishing like that you know. Well, I suppose we used to share a swim now and again. All right, all the time. Only way to get in a good swim on the Royalty down in Hampshire in those days. Christchurch’s in Dorset now? Not in my book, it’s not. Modern county boundaries. Did they move the town? Pah!
Modern Angling Magazines All that colour! So garish. That nice old Fishing magazine was all right in grotty black and white. Now what do you get? Catch Super this, Improve Your Catching that. None of those super old articles telling you how to make your own floats out of old pens, or rod rests out of coat hangers. We had loads of lovely purple prose dripping on about throbbing rods and screaming reels. Did they have a vole living inside? Some of these modern writers even appear to catch fish judging by their photos. But aren’t modern rigs complex? All swivels, beads and grip leads, all they need are a few brass booms and you’d have Bournemouth Pier circa 1960.
Ah! The nurse is coming with my medication. Always remember, as the big carp said to the little gudgeon, “Think before you swallow the bait!”
