How else would I get to see beautiful scenes like this
Well this is a question that usually comes from a non angler. To which my reply is to escape and level myself away from all the stresses and strains of modern life. I can not think of any other activity that manages to completely clear my mind. I rarely think of anything else on the bank but how to catch my next fish.
The gap grows
The question also sometimes comes from fellow anglers who can not understand my focus on exclusively Carp fishing. It raises an interesting split that clearly exists in course fishing. I have certainly witnessed a growing gap between the Pleasure and Match anglers and the pure Carp fishing anglers?
Why I started?
As with a lot of carp anglers I started fishing when I was very young and was not bothered what size or species I caught as long as I did catch? However around 15 years ago I decided that I was fed up of sitting perched on the edge my Shakespeare box. Starring at a float or a quiver tip for hours on end. I decided to change to fishing for Carp exclusively. To me this was a natural progression at the time as I usually had an extra rod and reel aimed at sneaking a large carp out anyway.
Times are a changing
However times have now changed and a lot of carp anglers now started carp fishing with out any previous experience of fishing. Their first experience is carp fishing and it does not affect them at all.
Reasons to love carp fishing
For me the reason I love carp fishing is the variety of experiences it gives you. I love the full experience, the camping, comfort and pure relaxation I get from carp fishing. These mixed with the technical aspects and the gadgetry equipment, it gives me every thing I want from a hobby. Some of these elements I have always got from fishing but only now on reflection do I truly appreciate the full experience.
Conclusions
I am sure many of you out there will have vastly different opinions or perhaps do not restrict yourselves to one type of fishing. However the trend of exclusive carp only fishing is only set to increase more over the next few years. I can only hope it does not reflect badly on the whole sport of fishing in the years to come.
Your right there is a vast increase of people sitting behind rod pod and bite alarms and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them have never float fished.
To be honest I love catching most species of fish but Carp fishing does seem to dominate my fishing, but I still love to catch nice big Tench Bream and Perch just as much and I’ve had people ask why bother, which I find ignorant and a bit sad.
There has always been a divide between match and specimen anglers but I doubt that will change.
I think you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head mate, carp fishing takes you away from the rat race that is modern life.
I am disabled and use a molbilty scooter to go fishing and I started couse fishing in 2004 .Never fished before.I then started carp fishing in 2005 and I knew from day one this was the sport for me.As it made me feel a live again and I get the best buzz of me life when I catch a biger fish or the only fish out of the lake that day fishing is for eveyone no matter what