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How different things were years ago

First time I ever tried Rock Salmon was around 1978 at Gt Yarmouth.Didn't mind it but prefer Cod or Haddock.Was the first time my missus came across Londoners/Essex and every other word was either Cnut or Fcuk.She couldn't understand that they spoke that way all the time.We used to live in Gillingham in '69 while I was at Chatham and she says they weren't like that there.
 
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dodders said:
Thats all we ever used to eat from the chippy in the 60's and 70's, loved it. Bit of a southern thing as I moved to the midlands in the 80's for 10 yrs and it didn't exist there.
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Never seen or eaten it Mick but would happily give it a go. We don't eat a lot of takeaways anyway, so may be a good idea if the supermarkets started selling it too.
 
Write up made good reading ,bought back a lot of memories when fishing was simple no high tech reels,if you had a carbon rod you were rich !!!,bring back the old days ,??
 
Trampster said:
Never seen or eaten it Mick but would happily give it a go. We don't eat a lot of takeaways anyway, so may be a good idea if the supermarkets started selling it too.
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Only trouble from supermarkets is their fish products (sea) have been stored in/on ice for ages, best go to a fresh fish shop where they have their own boats and bring the catch in every morning. I don't use takeaways either as you never know how old the stuff is.
 
I cut my teeth on the upper reaches of the bristol channel, 30 years ago was codling aplenty. Mostly fish in the 1lb8oz to 3lb class, but with at least 1 fish landed 6 to 8lb per tide along a particular stretch. 10 codling in a 3 hour session wasn't unusual. Not easy to get an insize codling up there now. Chesil was a totally different beast to what it is now, dogfish were very uncommon! Spurs on the other hand were plentiful and a good size too. I found cod harder to come by, definitely seems like more cod about in recent times but the average size was much bigger, normally 5 to 9lb class fish. I'm not sure if it's down to improvement in rods, reels etc or maybe I can cast further nowadays. Plaice were definitely bigger, and the whiting were huge! Averaging nearly 2lb on occasions (probably why the spurs were there!). Going back to the bristol channel, many more school bass about nowadays, there was probably the same numbers around 10 years ago but they were bigger, mostly 4-5lb fish very few schoolie back then. Then whiting have all but vanished, the congers are much smaller and only just seem to be coming back (plenty 20lbers about 20 years ago). What I have noticed in recent times are the decline in numbers of small fish, slips, pins etc.. Thornback Ray numbers no where near what they were and much much smaller average size. The club I used to fish in had a minimum size of 6lb for matches but have had to drop this due to the shrinking size of fish landed.
 
Maybe because it's been overfished by boats squid, hence the smaller size etc and the ones that managed to get out or miss the nets.
 
The Bc has had its cod stocks decimated, I'd imagine the migratory fish get intercepted before they reach the bc. The rays drop down the channel in a really cold winter to an area the boats can get them, added to that poor water quality, plus long lining decimated numbers. The nuclear power stations have a huge impact, many tonnes of fish get sucked into the water intakes, will get worse with hinkley C. I'd imagine it will be a few tonnes of fish killed per week for the one station. It would be nice to see some sizable codling back in the channel, don't expect it to ever return to numbers of the past, but to be able to get a few in size fish in a winter.
 
squidword said:
I cut my teeth on the upper reaches of the bristol channel, 30 years ago was codling aplenty. Mostly fish in the 1lb8oz to 3lb class, but with at least 1 fish landed 6 to 8lb per tide along a particular stretch. 10 codling in a 3 hour session wasn't unusual. Not easy to get an insize codling up there now. Chesil was a totally different beast to what it is now, dogfish were very uncommon! Spurs on the other hand were plentiful and a good size too. I found cod harder to come by, definitely seems like more cod about in recent times but the average size was much bigger, normally 5 to 9lb class fish. I'm not sure if it's down to improvement in rods, reels etc or maybe I can cast further nowadays. Plaice were definitely bigger, and the whiting were huge! Averaging nearly 2lb on occasions (probably why the spurs were there!). Going back to the bristol channel, many more school bass about nowadays, there was probably the same numbers around 10 years ago but they were bigger, mostly 4-5lb fish very few schoolie back then. Then whiting have all but vanished, the congers are much smaller and only just seem to be coming back (plenty 20lbers about 20 years ago). What I have noticed in recent times are the decline in numbers of small fish, slips, pins etc.. Thornback Ray numbers no where near what they were and much much smaller average size. The club I used to fish in had a minimum size of 6lb for matches but have had to drop this due to the shrinking size of fish landed.
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Used to fish Redwick and Goldcliff on the Welsh side 35 years ago , mostly smallish codling , whiting and the odd strap. The pattern for cod seemed to be smaller codling up by the bridge at the end of August after shrimp, and as the months went on the fish seemed to move down the channel and increase in volume and size with good catches from Cardiff foreshore. We used to catch a load on the boat at Penarth and Porthcawl. From January onwards there were good cod off the boats at Swansea and even some 30lbs in Feb/ March. Sadly those days are gone for many reasons and there isn't a big enough breeding stock to repair the damage.
 
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