How our fishing changed?

[Korrie]

Have any of you, stopped for awhile and thought how our fishing have changed?
As a kid, tagging along with older friends, dads, grand father, or who ever were willing to take you, all you wanted to do, was to be next to the water and have some bait on the end of the line.
To feel the tug, and if you got something out, it was a bonus, any size, it did not matter.
Then you started getting big enough to go by yourself and maybe a friend or 2, with a bicycle.
Later if you were lucky a car, your trips became longer, the fish bigger and the alcohol more.
Your other avenue of fishing was the fishing magazines, you started off, going with your dad, the things you looked at then and now? Nobody in the shop talked to you, later you started having a chat with the sales man, he probably did not take any serious considerations of your opinions, but still later, the shop owner had a decent disussion with you, because you were looking at spending your own money, on a new reel or rod. He started lookin at you with different eyes.
40 years ago, you only read Stywe Lyne, then the local fly fishing magazines started, then we had one, then two then more overseas fly fishing magazines.
The internet was another way we fished. the odd chat room, and EMAILS, WOW you could exchange stuff immediately, with someone overseas. I remember 1998/99, then came Google and it changed every thing.
You could have information, photos, stories, everything in a matter of seconds, and not just one or 2, Millions of hits of just about any topic you could dream off.
Fishing will never be the same.
But it will always be exactly as it was, you going to the water to catch a fish, just as a young boy.

[core fly]

Its has changed,a lot,but is it always for the better.Now its more about equipment,flies,special leaders and the list just goes on.In the old days guys caught trout with animal gut,horse hair and flies that could entice a barbel.Yet they caught fish and good one too.
Are we not becoming too technical.Does this not make us not as good as our forefathers in that we now throw a 7x leader at trout that they caught with "rope"
Obviously waters are fished way more often than those days and fish do become slightly more weary.In the early days guys caught a handful of yellows in the vaal and now you can walk away from a days fishing with huge double figures.
At the end its what you want from it that makes it your passion,but i would love to see how we would cope using equipmnt from the past.

[briansflyfishing]

The essence should always remain the same. The information in all form of media and multi media should only encourage us more with the knowledge they hold.
But no story or picture can ever replace the true experience of being next to the water.

[Korrie]

I think that I still get as big a kick or satisfaction out of fishing for little 5 to 10cm rock fish or small yellows with a friend's 4 or 5 year old boy, with a hand line and small hooks, as the first time I went fishing with with a "big Oke".

it seems that there is the eternal thing with small boys and fishing.
Or most of the boys. I have lost count of how many boys, I have taken fishing on camping trips or long weekends.
Some nurture the fishing hobby, some outgrow it, but the basics stays the same, the excitment for a youngster, when catching the fish, wether it is on a bent pin and hand line or a cheap supermarket rod. It has probably stayed the same.

[Stones]

Crime has a lot to do with how fishing has changed........the good old days....