I had an interesting chat last week with an old-school carper about the ‘angling journey’. We had a good old banter, and caught plenty of smallish perch to around 12oz by drop shotting. It was his first time using the tactic, and we got talking about how trying different aspects of the sport is what angling is all about. Sometimes we don’t have a lot of time to carp fish, but we can still get our fix in other ways.
My friend reckons too many anglers go straight into carp fishing and miss out on the joys of floatfishing or perhaps even casting a fly. I disagree. In my view, as long as people come into the sport, it doesn’t matter where they start.
Kicking off your fishing career with a float rod is the traditional way, but it’s not necessarily the right one any more. I don’t agree that carp fishing early on spoils you as an angler. If anything, it hooks you quicker.
He started to disagree, then realised that, as a hardcore carp angler, he had just discovered a new form of the sport that he really enjoyed, and was going to go to the tackle shop to set himself up with some kit. You see, angling isn’t a linear journey, it’s a cyclical one. Plenty of anglers switch disciplines and some of the best ones out there, be they lure anglers, trout anglers, specimen coarse anglers or even matchmen, used to be carp anglers. Carp angling isn’t the end of the journey. It’s just a stop along the route.
