You get to see quite a few new converts in my line of work, and their "bright eyed and bushy tailed zeal" is always a tonic.
As in church, so also in fishing:
I'm currently undergoing a "newly converted" phase, as after years of antipathy towards ridiculously long internally elasticated and reel-less lengths of carbon, I'm now a fully paid up member of the pole fishing fraternity; in fact, my current hunt for a 2 pound crucian is being almost exclusively conducted using a margin pole.
I guess my previous enmity towards pole fishing dates from the formative years of my angling youth. Back in the day, when I started fishing as a 13 year old in 1982 you had to choose. You were either a specimen hunter, a pleasure fisherman or a match angler. I aspired to be a specimen hunter, and in those days only matchmen used poles and I clung tightly to this creed for years after the distinctions between the different tribes of angler got blurred. These days it's not unusual to see a specimen angler like Martin Bowler sitting on a continental style seat box (I've got one of those now, too) floatfishing for large roach or rudd, nor to see match anglers chucking method feeders and using hair-rigged mini boilies.
I taught my two kids to fish using poles ( my daughter started fishing aged 6, my son when aged 4), catching tiddlers on little whips with flick-tips, but it's only this season that I've discovered myself what a great method the pole is. Anyway, time for me to go and sort out my winder box and get some rigs ready- I've got the day off work on Friday, and I'll be back to crucian hunting ..... on the pole, of course.
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