
As there is very little fishing happening at the mo and there is only so much I can think and talk about tackle before I go nuts I thought a change as good as a rest when this topic occurred to me this morning as I leafed through old copies of sea angler etc over morning coffee.
I tried to imagine what it would be like for someone with no interest in fishing who pickled up one of these magazines and leafed through it, what would they see? Well lots of things, cover stories, tackle articles, competitions and lots of pictures of dead fish. People holding dead fish in their kitchen, or in front of their garage (a personal favourite of mine), you know the kind of shots I'm on about, one's where the fish have been dead a while and lost their natural shine, bass in particular look terrible at this stage.
I have no objection to people keeping a fish or two for themselves, in fact if you fish solely for food then fair play to you it really is none of my business as long as people adhere to by laws they will get no guff from me but surely the powers that be in the magazine world can see that these pictures do nothing to promote our sport. Neither am I suggesting that we all need to turn into Henry Gilbey and take outstanding bass photographs (fair play Henry keep up the good work) but a few less of these types of photos and more taken at the beach, pier, headland or on the boat where the fish where caught would be nice. I think it would paint a far nicer and closer to the truth picture for anyone who happened upon one of these issues and had a bit of an auld read.