‘Getting to know the proprietor of the local tackle shop, Mr Ronnie Wood of A.J. Jewson Guns & Fishing Tackle of Westgate was a big step forward for me. He was a smashing chap who did lots to encourage me on my wobbly path to becoming a decidedly average angler, even though the knowledge he imparted went further than his shop door’
It is February 12th and I am sat looking out of the window at the birds around the feeder in the rear garden. I was so engrossed in the antics of our feathered friends that I felt obliged to take a quick moving snap, or video if you prefer, of their endeavours as they attempted and sometimes succeeded to access the fat balls in the feeder. It was so easy to do, even for somebody as technologically incompetent as me. As I was fumbling around using the infernal mobile phone, on which I should add I am a complete Neanderthal at understanding, I had a thought…
How did we ever get to the stage when most things can be accessed by the touch of a button, or tapping a small screen and, equally important to me, how much has this affected my angling?
My thoughts took me back to when I first started to travel a little to fish. I would have been somewhere around twelve or thirteen years old and had a bit of tackle gathered together by dint of making bits and pieces myself. I also saved up for a few more bits and pieces, getting bits of angling information from books borrowed from the library, watching the ‘grown up’ anglers fishing for perch on a local mill dam and reading the Angling Times which my long suffering parents purchased for me. It was quite an effort to garner this ‘knowledge‘ together, hoping it all made some sense but it was an effort I was willing to make.
Trying to understand how to tie a simple blood knot or how to whip on a spade-end hook was done by absorbing the black-and-white diagrams in books. There was no video available at the tapping of a screen, or keys on a keyboard; such magic and wizardry was only to be found in the realm of comic books. I could of course have purchased hooks-to-nylon but, as I have always been of an enquiring mind, to whip on hooks myself was far more satisfying, even if they did not always turn out as neatly as they should have done. In fact, even at that age I was making my own rudimentary floats, rod rests etc.
I used to be at the bus stop at 7.00 am on Sunday morning to catch the bus to a village some twelve miles up the main road where I would alight and, shouldering my bag of bits and rod in hand, then make the long trek from the village to the reservoir gate.
So, what has all this to do with today’s technology? Well, by dint of making spurious connections with weather, birds feeding etc,the links are tenuous but nevertheless, at least in my mind, they are there to bring the past 60 years forward to today. I used to watch the weather forecast avidly on the television, hoping that it was accurate which maybe it was or was not. How many twelve or thirteen year olds would now do that?
I would always take a set of waterproofs with me on my adventures in search of roach and perch, or at least clothes that passed as waterproofs as you could not really rely on the forecasts.My walks down the hill to the reservoir were tempered by the weight of the tackle in my bag and, on more than one occasion, by the uncomfortable and sweaty waterproofs I was wearing ‘just in case’.
These days I just make a few finger passes on a screen and I can be fairly sure of the forecast wind direction, the temperature, the rainfall probability, in fact a whole host of information which 60 years ago was unthinkable. I can, again, by making the same few finger passes on the screen see what the water level is on a certain stretch of river. I can even predict with a fair amount of accuracy when the same river may rise, or even flood, by simply accessing the levels on my phone. I can use the river levels ‘app’ provided by the water company on my phone to check the levels upstream of where I plan to fish. If the river has a flood pulse and tops out upstream at, say 7a.m. then, from experience, I can gauge that pulse will reach my preferred fishing location between six and seven hours later. Such information can be invaluable and I will admit it has saved the day more than once for me. I no longer carry clothes for every eventuality and am mostly confident of the river levels even before setting off, not to mention what they may do several hours hence.
Back then, 60 years ago, there was always a sense of not knowing,not being sure that the information you had was good for the day.This made every trip to the waterside a bit more of an adventure. It goes a lot further than simple weather forecasts though, in fact it almost covers every aspect of today’s angling, if you want it to.
I can get current reviews of modern rods, reels and other modern angling equipment and paraphernalia should I wish to. I can get locations and directions to different venues, I can get angling club contact details, what waters those clubs have, day ticket details,club membership details etc etc, and all of this without leaving my seat. We can now go on holiday almost anywhere both in the UK or abroad and I can have forward knowledge of what venues are available, species to be expected.
In fact I can probably book a few sessions on any available water around where we may be holidaying, pay for the sessions via the phone and just turn up. I have done exactly that when visiting the USA, Australia and indeed many other countries. In times past all those years ago such information had to be found by digging deep into angling papers, chatting to any adult angler that could be bothered to talk to a rather chubby kid with a mishmash of tackle.
Getting to know the proprietor of the local tackle shop, Mr Ronnie Wood of A.J. Jewson Guns & Fishing Tackle of Westgate was a big step forward for me. He was a smashing chap who did lots to encourage me on my wobbly path to becoming a decidedly average angler, even though the knowledge he imparted went further than his shop door. Looking back, I suppose he was encouraging a future customer but I prefer to think that he was giving help and advice to a budding angler.
The more I think about the advances we have, the more I consider what lengths we had to go to in the past to achieve what these days does not even warrant a second thought. For instance, you may quite by accident or design catch a specimen or special fish of whatever species. What do you do? Well, it is obvious; you take out your mobile phone and take a couple of snaps of it for your album, maybe even a few of what are popularly called ‘selfies’. What is more, if the photo is not to your liking you can simply take another, or two, or even a dozen or more, even a nice video, and when you have the time you can alter the colour, the tone, the size and maybe a host of things on that photo, just to suit your taste. You can even advertise your catches to the worldalmost as they happen and have your successes broadcast far and wide, should you crave a few moments of fame.
Go back in time and think what us anglers of ‘a certain age’ had to do. Well, for one thing, you had to carry a camera (which took up space in your small tackle box or bag). Mine was a Kodak‘Brownie 127’ which you just pointed at the subject and then pushed the shutter. Your camera doubtless had a roll of film insideand, having taken your snaps, you then had to take that roll of film to the chemist and wait a week or more for it to be processed.After paying a sum which, for a young ‘un, seemed like a month’s paper-round money, the results were very occasionally great, sometimes acceptable, but for the most part, as a person with very little clue about taking photos, well, my snaps varied from very poor to unrecognizable.
Let us now move along to transport. As a young ‘un I had to rely either upon the bus, or my father, to get me there and back to the few venues I fished that were over five miles from home. If I had to cut the session short, or stay a bit longer if the fish were biting for whatever reason, it was either a case of waiting for a later bus and thus giving my parents a worrying wait for me to arrive home,or leaving the waterside and carting all my tackle back up the hill,finding a telephone box that was working AND having the required change to make the call home, then walking back down the hill and starting all over again. Unsurprisingly, this never happened, as far as I can remember. Today, a quick call on your trusty mobile phone from the river bank or wherever you are is all you need to do, that is if you have a phone signal; even the most advanced mobile can have its downsides.
Moving onto today’s young anglers, if you can find any. Even ten year olds have their own mobile phones these days and in all probability know more about how to use them than I will ever know. No doubt the younger anglers will learn lots from the internet but, because of that, do they lose the magic and wonder of days spent at the waterside, learning along the way, and making their own discoveries?
Having expanded upon where my thoughts on modern ‘tech’ is concerned, I should now say what I really think in those quieter moments. I find the whole internet angling picture to be a confusion. I like to watch older films of anglers from years ago at the waterside but a good percentage of the rest is mostly sponsored by tackle companies trying to improve sales, or videos from self-styled experts doing the ‘how to’ videos. They seem to me to take the excitement and adventure out of forging your own way forward, making mistakes, and learning along the way. I do not watch such stuff but it has a way of creeping into the most unlikely of places.
Maybe I am looking back across these 60-plus years or so with rose-coloured spectacles but, in truth, I think I preferred my stumbling and hesitant first casts, using a self-built, tank aerial rod and small, pressed-steel centrepin, my clumsily tied knots and badly cocked floats. This includes my hot and sweaty treks to the reservoirs or dams and my elation and delight at catching a couple of small perch, or maybe a few silvery roach. Most of all, I still remember the evenings sat reading pages of the Angling Times, or one of the books borrowed from the library, absorbing the experiences of the authors. On the other hand, is that not what the internet does for today’s anglers? I admit that I am as guilty as the next chap where it comes to sourcing bits and pieces of vintage tackle that cannot be found in the modern tackle shops. Where else would I look? Well, the internet obviously and let’s face it, if it was not for t’interweb you would not be here with other traditional anglers, maybe reminiscing on days long gone.
Thank you for joining me in my curmudgeonly ramblings concerning today’s technology.
Writing David Craine, Photo Ruth Craine, February 2026
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