"Yes indeed. They have missed out on all the fun of an angling apprenticeship, the gudgeon, that first perch, caught by sheer fluke due to inappropriate tackle, but a thrill nevertheless. A lot more anglers begin as teenagers these days, rather than as younger kids, and thus at an age when the instant gratification culture is already very ingrained."

As a relative late-comer to fishing, (I didn't discover it until I was 11!) I have now been fishing for 50 years. In all that time I've never stopped learning, both from my own experience, and from listening to the advice of others.

"But the Severn as I think you found out recently is not the type of river you can just turn up and hit into big fish or any barbel for that matter in my experience anyway, others may disagree!!"

The Severn is a river that rewards those who follow the learning approach, 'seek and ye shall find'! This season I've seen a lot of people who are moaning about how poor the fishing is, they sit on one peg all day, in bright sunshine, and wonder why they don't catch? I, on the other hand, have had some of my best early season results ever, passed 100 barbel for the season in only 13 visits, ironically on Friday 13th! To do this I've fished plenty of swims that rarely, if ever, see another angler and I've walked a good few miles to do it. Some of my catches have come from swims that I know from past experience, but the most rewarding ones have been from swims that I've found by applying some of the knowledge I've gained over the years.