Angling Lines blog

by Gareth Watkins

Other than your carp fishing rods, reels, buzzers and bivvy, there are several items of tackle that despite their relative insignificance I’d be hard pressed to fish without when I venture abroad on my carp fishing holiday in France. Some items it is worth stocking up on to avoid running out and others literally make the difference between fishing effectively and blanking. continue reading…

When I first started out carp fishing in the late 70’s, most of today’s gear didn’t exist, I used to walk around the lake with every bit of carp gear I owned in a green army surplus rucksack, with my rods & brolly in a roll-up holdall and a sun-lounger to sit & sleep on. If I planned to stay a night I’d add a blanket. How things have changed these days! I see guys bringing so much gear if defies belief. 

I spend a lot of my time travelling around France. Every summer I’m out on the road shooting the lake videos for three months or so solid. The amount of gear I have to cart around both photographic and fishing is ridiculous. Over the last couple of years I have made a concerted effort to reduce the amount of fishing tackle I take with me. It all started when I had to go to the Canaries to fish on Lake Chira. I hadn’t planed to night fish, and my rods & landing net were supplied

As many people will know your luggage weight is severely restricted, so with my clothes and personal effects, I basically had room for my tackle box, two reels, two buzzers, a light pod and a couple of kilos of bait. When you actually do a stock check and look at what we take fishing, you soon realise that you don’t use half of it. The Chira trip saw me catch fish to over 30lb on next to no gear at all.

So what have I done to take less with me but still be operational? continue reading…

Izaak Walton’s famous book ‘The Complete Angler’ was a celebration of our sport, based on the central theme that angling is an art that transcends the objective of catching fish.

Angling then is the technique of catching fish using a rod and line; it is called “angling” because of the angle formed by the two. It has been suggested that the quintessential step of making fishing into a sport, rather than just a means of catching fish for food, was the invention of the rod.  It is considered a sport, then when practised for enjoyment. Anglers sometimes attempt to catch only one type of fish, in our case the Carp, often limiting their equipment to increase the sport - Sports commonly refer to activities where the physical capabilities of the competitor are the sole or primary determiner of the outcome.

Since the beginning then, angling’s rules and traditions have been laid down to provide sport by imposing a certain level of difficulty. I think everyone would agree that there are far easier and swifter ways of extracting fish from a lake or river than by rod and line.  Nets, deadlines, multiple hooked lines and explosives would all be far more effective than a simple hook,rod and line. (Admittedly the latter suggestion makes catch and release somewhat difficult!!) continue reading…