We are a race of must have consumers, everywhere you look there is some must have gadget to make our 21st century lives easier. What utter garbage, we have been conditioned by clever ad-men into believing our world will fall apart without them. Don’t believe me! Have you or of friend bought a new mobile phone recently, was there anything wrong with the old one? Probably not, but some clever advertising convinced you that you couldn’t live without this new one.

Fishing is no different, and you are interested in fishing, or you probably wouldn’t be reading this, you most likely read fishing papers and magazines as well. Those crafty ad-men love people like us, they convince us that the best way to catch more fish is to their new rod, coupled with their new reel, and of course you must use their rigs and wonder baits.

I know, I’ve done it; I’ve bought new carp rods, bought bait runner reels, and the must have electronic bite alarms. Yes I’ve fished at a distant feature on a lake, baited the swim with the must have boilies and sat for long hours on my bed chair waiting for the elusive bite.

Fishing is a patient game, but it doesn’t have to be boring. I once heard watching paint dry is boring, but at the end you have a result, dry paint. So as I listened to my silent bite alarm, I would bring in one of the carp rods, and change it for a light rod with a float set up, I would then start to enjoy my fishing, targeting the tench, roach or bream in the lake.

I’m not a specimen hunter, but had delusions of grandeur, so all this equipment was rather lost on me; I’ve met others who say the same. I prefer catching fish little and often, I didn’t need all the exotic flavoured boilies, hair rigs, bolt rigs, helicopter rigs, or all the PVA bags, tubes and string, and all the other paraphernalia the ad-men told me I had to have to catch more fish.

No more boilies for me, my hook baits are simply sweet-corn, luncheon meat, bread and par boiled potatoes, to float a hook bait off the bottom, I use a thin slice of banana skin. My simple ground bait is a mix of sweet-corn, bread, and chick peas, not other flavours are required, but I sometimes experiment with natural herbs and spices.

Lots of fishing magazines extol the virtues of well stocked fisheries (I don’t use them), and it’s not uncommon to see youngsters holding a ten or fifteen pound carp, but I wonder how much was due to the fisheries stocking policy, or the youngster ability.

To get the most out of a fishing experience it’s important to know your watercraft, to know the basics, from which species to target, the tackle set up you should employ, and what changes to make if the conditions change.

I don’t know how much a session is on a fishery nowadays, but without the basics you will probably be stuck there with your carp rods and bait runners, feeding enormous amounts of shop bought ground bait and boilies into a distant swim, and carrying all the latest, can’t be without gizmos. Better buy yourself a very comfy chair, or change back to basics.