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Go fishing for the love, not the likes

With the rise of social media, many of us are forgetting the reasons we fell in love with fishing...

angler enjoying his catch by kissing it

by Aidan Bordiuk |

Published on13th March 2026 at 2.40pm

Fishing and social media have never been more intertwined and while this has its positives, it also has pitfalls, many of which can lead anglers to lose the joy and passion they once had for the sport, sometimes abandoning it altogether.

Social media, as mentioned, isn’t all bad. You’d be hard-pressed to find an angler who doesn’t actively use it or consult various platforms for information. Many fisheries maintain their own pages, providing up-to-date information on what fish have been caught, how the venue is fishing, and which tactics are working. With day tickets and match fees becoming increasingly expensive, this information can drastically increase your chances of having a great day on the bank, sometimes putting you days or even weeks ahead of anglers who don’t have access to it.

Platforms like YouTube and Facebook are incredible tools for both new and experienced anglers to learn about new methods. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that the reason more, and bigger fish are being caught now than ever before is that the skill level of anglers has increased thanks to the seemingly endless videos available at the touch of a button. It also allows anglers to relive and share moments or captures with others, and when the angling community comes together in a supportive manner, there is no better place to be!

Fishing is the best sport in the world - we forget that sometimes!

However, social media can also play devil’s advocate with many anglers and while few of us would like to admit it, myself included, the urge to chase likes by posting fish, orgoing fishing to create content when we don’t really want to, can lead to burnout surprisingly quickly.

We’ve all seen people post a fish they are proud of online only to be immediately belittled over the suggested weight. The almost forced match blog posts because if the anglers don’t, when they do post, they are branded glory hunters. “You can’t fish there,” “that’s a ‘wrong un’,” “that doesn’t count,” or “rather catch 20 lb of roach than 200 lb of carp”— these phrases are becoming almost cliché they are used so much.

Angling has enough external threats without us tearing it down from the inside. The “mat police” are always out in force with new anglers. If you can honestly say your fish care has always been flawless, then good for you, but the rigid hierarchy and tendency to be overly critical of someone who may not know better is discouraging, when a helpful suggestion would be far more constructive. It's even getting to the point where you can look at an image and you can almost perfectly predict the comments.

Why not help other anglers rather than put them down?

The strangest thing is, the online angling world couldn’t be more out of touch with the ‘on the bank’ camaraderie we see, with anglers striking up conversations and friendships with those they never would have without the shared enjoyment of angling.

With the rise of sponsorships, YouTube fame, and various deals in the angling industry since social media took hold of our sport, many veer off in a direction that, if they're being truthful, they aren't entirely comfortable with. We’ve seen it more than once, rising stars putting everything into fishing to chase sponsorships, only to give it all up because they aren’t truly enjoying the discipline they’ve chosen to pursue.

We all start fishing because something inexplicable ignites within us the first time we wet a line. The most awkward question you can ask any angler is, “Why do you like to go fishing?” and if you’ve ever been asked that, you’ll understand why as there is no single answer it’s something built into us. I’ve always said you either love or hate fishing, there’s little in-between, and you can usually tell from someone’s very first outing whether they’re going to stick with it or give up.

Fishing is the perfect remedy for many of life stressors

If you look online, it can seem like big fish are caught every day, some anglers are winning every match they enter, and others are landing specimen fish every time they hit the bank. But for the vast majority of us, that simply isn’t the case. The comparison model that social media thrives on can actually destroy what we love. Not everyone is catching, not everyone is winning, and honestly, it doesn’t matter if they are, the simple fact is if you’re enjoying your fishing, it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing.

If you want to post a fish online, do it and don’t worry about what others think, if it meant something to you and you want to share that moment, that is awesome! There is nothing more enjoyable than seeing other anglers genuinely excited about a fish they have caught, something we love to celebrate here at Angling Times.

Put simply, go fishing for you, do the fishing you enjoy, and certainly don’t go for justification. If you want to go and catch a big carp, fish a match, or land a netful of roach on the river, do it, because fishing is magical in that it’s there for everyone and has something for every angler, but all too often, we forget that in the pursuit for likes.

This is what it is all about! Memories and a shared enjoyment for a sport we all love!

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