Were things better “back in the day?”

[ouchthathurt]

Having posted on the “chilly” thread meeting some of the names of the sport, this got me thinking… 

I was in the queue with my son to meet Alan Blair (who when we got to him asked me if I had any questions for him, yes i said, one… how did this sport become so blooming expensive! - he was a nice lad) 

well also at the Nash stand, was that legend, Julian Cundiffe! I had to have a chat with him, (I wrote to him when I was 14 for a school project - writing an article on a hobby or some such rubbish for school, I wrote about a summers angling on a small snaggy pond where we had a right result and I learned how effective the regular application of a decent quality HNV bait could be, the small population of carp got so into the bait, they would be lining up waiting for me to deposit a bag of freshly rolled baits on the spot) and he actually replied having read my article and gave a few pointers! - it actually got published in big carp magazine too… still waiting my sponsorship deal 🙄 

well Julian Cundiffe and I got talking about the sport and the conversation drifted onto how things have changed, I was lamenting how my boy would never truly understand the shear unadulterated joy of cycling to a farm pond to catch a 6lb common, as everything is so much more accessible for him than it was for me. 

I think my son rolls his eyes when we are sat on a pond in the evening over a brew and I start regaling him with tales of my carp fishing in the early 90s “here we go again, old uncle Albert with tales of when he was in the war” etc etc 

when I tell him how my first boilies were made out of eggs, self raising flour, vanilla flavouring and red food colouring, rolled into balls and baked in the oven… they went in about 8mm and came out about 50mm! 

I took them down to the local pond and side hooked them to my super advanced rig of the day, a 3/4oz bomb free running on the line to a swivel and a 1 foot mono hooklink! 
it wasn’t until after I caught a carp on one that I found out that the damn things floated!! 

as he sits behind a battery of 3 high quality carbons, that can sling a lead 120yrds, coupled with the latest in bait runner technology, with rigs and baits that nigh on require a scientific degree to decipher, coupled with a solid pod, all singing all dancing alarms… while he waits, his buttocks are caressed by a bed chair more comfortable than the beds at home, all ensconced in a lightweight, easy to erect bivvy… his tackle box is stuffed full of hooks, braids, fluros gizmos and gadgets to construct these wonder rigs, he can lie back and watch Netflix on a phone more advanced than any family computer i ever had at his age (dial up modem anyone?) he wants a new rig, or see the latest wonder method, there it is on YouTube, 20,000 vids on the ronnie rig, take your pick! His gear at ages 15-17yrs is more than I could have ever have dreamed of at his age. (I’m as much to blame, I brought it all!) 

has this modern approach taken the soul out of carping?? 

my first carp rods were 11ft fibreglass 1 3/4lb tc with cork handles. One brown blank and one black. Reels were whatever reel had 8lb Diawa sensor on it - I swapped a quiver tip and a float rod for these carp rods. 
I learnt how to tie a hair rig from John Wilson’s fishing show - he caught a barbel on rolling meat. The rods rested on 4 wire rod rests with dough bobbins 

I remember seeing my first carp in a lake, it was HUGE!!! (About 8lb!) that was it, I needed to catch one! I was with my dad who isn’t a carper, so I had no idea where to start - watching redmire legends episode of a passion for angling made the yearning worse! (I was off sick from school when it came on - I couldn’t believe my luck) 

I remember to this day my first ever carp, on float fished maggots in a farm pond, it weighed 2lb!! 

I remember my first double a mirror, weighing 10lb 1oz caught on bread crust popped up off a swim feeder full of mashed bread - i caught two doubles that day, both weighing 10lb 1oz!
my first 20, 20lb 1oz - stalked on a piece of bread I still remember the buzz… I asked my son if he could remember these milestones for himself, but he couldn’t. 

the learning, the trying things out, (WD40 as a bait soak anyone??) the watching of other anglers and mimicking them, no internet, no YouTube, no “how to” vids and mags, (although carpworld was the bomb!) 

I remember sitting on the bank of the “park lake” (months into a seasons blank) reading Terry Hearn’s account of catching Mary at a British record weight in carpworld, it blew my mind! A 50+ carp, now 50’s are all over the shop! 

going back to my sons (and admittedly my) tackle box, there are hooks of different sizes, out turned eye, in-turned, curve shanks, wide gapes… coated braids, uncoated braid, flurocarbon, stiff links, spinner swivels, micro swivels, line aligner sleeves, stripper tools, all manner of beads, leaders, tungsten tubing, bolt bubbles, quick change swivels, lead clips, heli drop off clips, lead core, etc etc… my first carp tackle box consisted of: 

drennan super specialist size 4

drennan super specialist size 10 (floater fishing) 

ashima carp hooks size 6 (nicked from a mate)

kamasan B175 fly hooks size 6 (banging hook) 

spool of merlin (if I could afford it!) 

spool of amnesia 

spool of Berkeley big game (mono hooklinks) 

beads

swivels 

baiting needle (the Gardner one) 

bait drill 

selection of leads - 3/4oz - 2oz 

Scissors 

all squeezed into a vhs cassette tape box! Admittedly the Berkeley big game was nicked from the dad and rattled around in a bright red canvas rucksack! Bait stops were the stems of leaves. 

my first alarms were cheap £12 alarms from Argos, that were basically a black box with an orange arm you hooked the line around! My bobbins were either John Robert’s plastic bobbins that you could pop the top off and pack with mud to make them heavier! Or I’d push a hair grip into a cork. I then saw a pair of optonics in a tackle shop in Norfolk and begged my parents to buy them as an early birthday present, bless their soul, they did! They were like church mice, so quiet! But I loved them! (The alarms not the parents, although I love them too!) 

My first landing net was an old metal poled, metal armed dog catching net from an old boy who was in the RSPCA! It had a lever on the spreader block that took a length of cord - throw it over the dog, pull the cord and the arms slid down the handle! 

night sessions under a 45” black brolly on a camping bed with 2 Argos sleeping bags, shivering your nuts off on winter sessions and having to commando roll off the bed as the rim of your brolly was so low you couldn’t sit up!

Buying my first base mix, carp company fruit frenzy, the trial and errors that caused! Browsing shelves of flavours, stumbling on rich worth boiled ham, or blue cheese flavour or the best flavour of all, hutchies mixed herbs!

catching my first carp on a boilie I’d made myself, then in 1997 discovering premier base mixes - aminos - I still use a variation of that same basemix to this day.

i remember the long summer days, bulrushes thick, verdant and green, dark muscular commons, taking the lake apart on trout pellets! chick peas soaked in whiskey… No spinners, Ronnie was a bailiff not a rig, just simple hair rigs to 1oz leads running on the line. I sit on the exact same lake today and it’s like it’s a different place, a sorry imitation of itself, pale insipid commons, threadbare reeds, was it ever thus? Do I look back with rose tinted specs?

i remember the path trod by all young carpers down my way (the same path i then took my son down), starting on the easy lake learning your trade through experimentation, trial and error then moving onto a trickier snaggy canal shaped pond to try your hand at “bigger carp” (biggest a scraper 20) learning how to cast accurately to spots in the far margin, if you missed, you hit a tree so it’s a skill you learnt quickly!

then moving onto the “big boy water” the park lake, where 20-30 ancient leney mirrors resides in 8 acres, 10 fish a year was considered a flyer - my first full season (1996-1997) was a total blank! I just came off an overnighter on the same water where I had a 20lb, 25lb & 30lb in a few hours - this lake now holds 60-70 carp, including 6-8 30’s and one 40. It’s still considered tricky, but as hard as yesteryear? Not a bit of it! Back then it only had one 30. Last night I fished a neglected swim (coincidentally the same swim I caught my first carp from this water - 10lb 2oz on a pva bag in the margins to a premier aminos GLM boilie with boiled ham flavour) my rig consisted of 10” fox cortex soft coated braid, fished slip D style, to an ESP Clawhammer size 6 hook and a shrink tube line aligner, yet in 1997 I took my first 20lb mirror and over all personal best of 28lb, a jet black angry mirror, all tight muscle, withered fins, scars and attitude, on a 5” amnesia hooklink to a size 4 drennan super specialist hook. The hair was a continuation of the hooklink (the hair loop knot was huge!) at one time that rig was my go to rig, yet when I tied up a modern equivalent, it looked awful! What’s changed?

my son has done extremely well, he has caught some crackers, 2 x 38lb commons, mirrors to 32lb, from the park lake this season alone, but on my baits, mimicking my rigs and tactics, had he been me, and didn’t have a carping mad dad to coach him to the point he is at now, would he have done as well? yet conversely, had he gone through the apprenticeship that we enjoyed/endured as kids, would he have enjoyed it more? Has the internet age killed the joy of trying something and seeing it work? I used to sit there for ages, tying up different rigs, my boy just googles it!

I remember strapping my rods to the frame of my BMX and cycling with my mates to farm ponds to catch a shed load of roach, perch and skimmers. Catching elvers and minnows to live bait for perch, yet nowadays it’s all about the carp. Get the gear, get the boilie get the 30, pot noodle carpers, just add water!

my first “true” matching set up consisted of Abu Garcia delta 11ft 2lb tc specimen rods with cardinal 55 reels, brought with birthday money and savings from my 2 paper rounds, resting on my trusty optonics back then we specifically went “night fishing” it was something “special” nowadays we “just” fish… my night gear could be carried on my back in an old army Bergen rucksack or stuffed in a hold all over my shoulder, today I need a carp porter barrow!

as a kid, I would sit for hours just staring at the lake, I could easily while away a weekend session doing nothing and not get bored, there was too much going on! Today my son sits on the luxurious bed chair with unlimited 5G, phone plugged into a PowerPack watching carp fishing videos on YouTube! Mate YOU'RE AT THE LAKE!!! If his phone dies, he’s lost!

I do find myself mourning the old days, where not everything was so accessible and instant, don’t get me wrong, it was the 90s, not the 60s, gear was available, mainstream carping was taking off, but to a young kid relying on pocket money, paper round money and birthday money, these items were financially out of reach, so you found a way to succeed with what you had. I watch my son, accomplished carper that he is, but he doesn’t realise how easy it is these days, I know if I put him onto a swim on the park lake that he’s never fished before, he’d struggle the art of marker float work, walking into a swim and “reading” it knowing instinctively where to place each hook bait seems to have been lost. Before marker rods etc, we would just walk into a swim, look at what you had and think, “well that bush looks inviting, I’ll pop one bait under that, I’ll stick another by those reeds and there you go, it always worked fine before. Now my son walks into the neglected swim on the park lake, wraps the marker, rods and spod to 9 wraps, and away he goes, marker out, three rods around the marker, 10-20 spods over the top, retrieve the marker and await the carp. Why 9 wraps? Because I found the harder patch of silt with a marker float and know it’s the one, he then asked me what the wraps were! I didn’t know, I don’t even have distance sticks! A pair of storm poles did the job and I counted the wraps for him. Now he knows. He recognises when he’s on it feeling the lead down, but I doubt that he would find it with a marker float and lead if left to his own devices. Or maybe, his time carping with his old man was his “golden age” maybe he’s currently in his “golden age” he can’t miss the simple times because he didn’t experience them as I did, it’s a generational thing - it’s not his fault that you can buy alarms for £30 today that would have cost 3 times as much back in the day. 

while I enjoy my carping, lord knows I’ve been fortunate in my angling, 2 English 40+ commons ranks as my biggest achievement, I do find myself increasingly drifting back down memory lane where everything seemed so simple. Last night I had a 30, I was happy, but I wasn’t screaming the place down. 20yrs ago I’d have popped the thing in the sleeping bag and cuddled it all night long if it were possible! I remember once staring at a fish like that for ages on the mat, last night I have barely any memory of the fish at all - in the net, on the mat, in the sling, weigh, bucket of water over it, quick snap with the self takes, treat the hook wound, back it goes, all done and dusted in a few minutes, I had to look back at the photos to see what it actually looked like! As far as fish care goes we are light years ahead, one good thing.

i recognise in myself that I’ve got a bit stale, last night proved it to me, I had 3 good carp in a few hours, I know the lake, I knew where they would be, they are not the old paranoid leneys of old, these are a mix of VS and Simmons fish, stocked between 1999 and mid 2000s give or take, they’ve gone in at low doubles and have done well, they aren’t pushovers, but ultimately, they’ve been bred on pellets from carplets, they recognise pellet as a staple food source, put a bed out and they’ll come looking, stick a decent bait under their nose and you’ll have them. I left having had a good session, yet the other 4 anglers on the lake had a low 20 common between them.

am I alone in feeling that modern carping has lost its soul somewhat? (I do need to find another venue, theres a wild windswept pit that’s caught my eye, just trying to find out who owns it!) maybe a completely new challenge will get me champing at the bit again.

or maybe I’ve just become the angling equivalent of uncle Albert 

now let me regale you of tales of the war… 

“in Afghanistan, I was on patrol…” nah, maybe not!

I still refuse to buy terminal tackle online though, I much rather walk into a tackle shop! “…Can’t walk into a website for a natter can you?…” (quote - song of the solitary bass fisher, by James “leaky boots” Batty - excellent book!