I’m asking the question and I don’t want any falling out over who’s right and who’s wrong, if we differ, let’s leave it like that. Let me set the scenario because this involves me, but the other names have been altered to protect their identities, not that you would know them anyway. Or at least, I hope not.
Nicolas was coming up to retirement and had thought about taking up fishing again. He’s had a fair bit of experience in sea fishing over the years, but he was a kid when he last went coarse fishing and then caught nothing more than a couple of ounces.
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| They start off small. |
He’s the sort of guy that likes to keep busy doing something, can’t stand hanging around, always on the go. It seems he’s happiest watching a float go under or, this was new to him, a tip going around to indicate a bite. He’d heard of carp fishing and this sitting behind bite alarms for hours on end, sometimes not catching anything at all, and he didn’t seem to be smitten by it.
Norris, on the other hand, is a man who has been carp fishing for 30 years or more now, it’s all he really wants to do. However, his knowledge of even that is far from up-to-date and as an example, I asked him once what was the knot he used to tie his main line to the swivel and he didn’t know what it was called. It looked like a botched up grinner, but nothing I have ever seen in magazines or books and I can only think that a public hangman must have taught it to him. Mind you, he never reads any magazines about fishing so hardly surprising really.
He likes to sit behind a pair (preferably three) rods all on alarms, all fishing a boily, all with the same type of rig on the end because …. it has caught him fish before so why change? Norris never, or hardly ever, uses any other bait tied in a PVA bag or net as this only adds to the cost and he’s a bit frightened of spending money (he could easily qualify as a Yorkshireman). Much of his tackle, the rods and reels are OK, has seen better days and should be replaced, but he enjoys what he does and says it works for him.
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| Then get bigger |
Then there’s myself and if you don’t know me, I’m into all sides of coarse fishing, carp, barbel, river, still water, float fishing, quiver tipping, spinning, you name it, I do it. I am, as a lot will also know, a tackle tart and keep my stuff well up to date. I don’t read as many magazines as I used to these days, but we have our “experts” on here to advise me if I feel something new requires further explanation – and I’m not afraid to ask! I keep my ear to the ground – not literally of course.
So that’s the three of us, Nicolas the newbie, Norris the carper, and myself, an all-rounder.
Nicolas has been a few times this season so far with either borrowed or gifted gear and he seems to like catching anything that swims, but he has no carp gear. Norris wants him to go carping and for him to buy his own stuff with all that entails, the pod, alarms, rods, reels, bivvy (yes!), and big net + unhooking mat. I have offered to take him general fishing and for some smaller carp and show him what to do whenever he likes and wherever he likes with the tackle he already has such as his float rod and an Avon/Quiver he has just purchased.
Now that Nicolas has fully retired he is able to go whenever he likes. Now I ask the question – should Nicolas get himself a load of carp fishing gear and spend his time fishing only for carp targeting those fish over 15lbs and more specifically those over 20lbs, or should he just go general coarse fishing catching small fish at first and then bigger and bigger over a wide variety of species?
Question – What would you advise as the best way to expand your learning of the art of fishing?
The Reincarnated Walker
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| And bigger and better |
I’ll tell you why I ask this and what brought it to mind. In the summer Geoff Maynard and I went to Bury Hill on Temple Lake for a 24 hour stint. In the morning a voice came from behind asking “Caught anything?” This pimply youth came creeping up on me and I answered that we hadn’t had any bites other than catching a few small perch for amusement.
He then came up with a string of advice topped by “If you fish the right swims in here you can get a thirty pounder.” Which we knew already and hence the reason we were there as guests of the owner, David de Vere, but the advice came as if from someone with long years of fishing experience. Even longer than our Graham – and he taught Moses, or was it St Peter?
After a couple of minutes and more fairly obvious advice, he replaced his comforter back in his mouth, mounted his Triang tricycle and went on his way. (Just joking.) It struck me that there was a prime example of one of today’s “Instant Carpers”. He’d read a few books, bought all his tackle, had sat for a few hours or days even behind motionless bobbins and all of a sudden had become a reincarnated Dick Walker.
I had asked him if he fished for any other species and he said that nothing else really interested him, not that he would know. I felt as if there was a void in his fishing life that needed filling with experience, but he was in no mood to even take it that far. He was the very model of the modern day recruit who’s just taken up the sport and straight away he’s into number chasing for that all important trophy shot, a bit like twitchers are in the bird watching world.
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| And even better still |
Don’t think for one minute I’m having a pop at carp anglers, I’m not. We have some good ones on this site, Cakey for one, Dave (Frothey) Rothery for another, and more besides. Either of them is welcome to give me a lesson anytime and I would soak it up, but it’s those who simply haven’t got the breadth of fishing experience and, coming back to Graham’s “Has the Skill Gone Out of Fishing?” piece, only ever fish that one particular bolt rig/boily style. A bit like my Norris above.
I never forget meeting a guy on one of our pits about 14 or 15 years ago, he wasn’t fishing and the reason being, he tried it and didn’t know what to do for his next hyper-fix. He told me he’d been with a friend of his carp fishing and had caught a 35lber and this was followed later in the same week with a barbel of 14lbs. I said he should consider himself very lucky, but why not try for some lesser species or fish for smaller fish with lighter tackle. He’d already been spoilt and just wasn’t interested.
Back to Nicolas (the newbie) and were I him, I think I’d like to cut my teeth on some smaller fish first, setting reasonable sized targets like a 5lbs tench, a 7lbs bream, a 1lb roach, and a nice 6lbs barbel followed by a 7lber and then an 8lber and so on. Surely it’s nicer to keep breaking your own PBs gradually than hitting a huge fish on the first attempt? Once you’ve had that all round experience of catching different fish in a range of different weights, then you can choose to specialise if you want to, but even then, I wouldn’t opt for one species.
I can’t. I just enjoy going fishing.
