DES TAYLOR
‘Technology improves angling’
SPENDING all my time cleaning and tidying my fishing tackle rather than actually using it is getting to be a pain.
But with the passing of each week we are all closer to the moment when we can get out on the bank and put a bend back in our rods and poles.
I tell you what, during my big clean-up of all the gear I’ve noticed how many gadgets I routinely use in my fishing nowadays – everything from buzzers and echo-sounders to bait boats, wrap sticks, boilie crumb-makers and my phone.
I’ve loaded various apps on to it to help my fishing, including one that tells me what the weather will be like and even one that lets me watch a film or football on an overnighter. It’s a long way away from the days when I had a tank aerial as a rod, a cheap Intrepid fixed-spool reel and a wicker basket to sit on.
But I’m not one of those anglers who wants to wrap our sport up in a cocoon and never see it change. Everything has to move with the times, and it’s your choice how far you want to take your fishing in relation to the use of new technology.
John Wilson never used a bivvy or a bedchair. If you did, he called it camping, and he and I had many a mickey-taking discussion on this very subject. That’s what’s so nice about angling. You can tailor it to suit yourself and no-one can say you’re right or wrong.
I do draw the line at watching fish on underwater cameras and studying their reaction to my rigs and baits. I want that side of the sport to remain a mystery to me and anyway, I catch enough fish to satisfy me without watching them in the privacy of their watery home – but that’s only my opinion.
Modern technology has helped me catch a lot of fine fish from the sea, lakes and big rivers. Regularly catching big carp from big waters would have been difficult, if not impossible, without the help of an echosounder or fish-finder.
Tackling big rivers like the Trent, where depths can range between 5ft and 20ft within a few yards, has been made a lot easier by modern inventions.
I remember back in 1986, when my mate Phil Goodsell and I first visited the Lower Severn, we plummeted the mile-long stretch with a pike float and a big lead. We got there in the end but an echo-sounder would have saved us a lot of time and given us a lot more information on the contours of the riverbed.
The use of marker floats to pinpoint the sweet spot in your swims, and wrap sticks to measure where your next cast should go, is less high-tech but just as important. Make no mistake, being two yards out can make all the difference between catching and failing.
When you have put the bait and rig on the right spot and you’re feeling confident, you can happily sit there and wait for days for that fish of a lifetime to come along.
In the end it all comes back to what sits well with you. As long as you’re not breaking rules or damaging the fish then just get on with it and enjoy yourself.