Back in the days when there were two angling papers, the rivalry between the Anglers Mail and the Angling Times was more childishly intense than you can believe.

I wrote for the former paper for 40-plus years and it didn’t matter what I did or caught, the Times would not even mention it. So, even though the Mail hit the dust some years ago, I suspect the hostilities haven’t quite subsided.

When the Times published its list of 70 influential anglers I didn’t expect to be on it… even had I deserved a hundred fold to be there. Still, the exercise is not without merit. Who really influences angling, especially long term, especially now in these days crazed with instant and transitory news?

Six years ago in this very paper I wrote a similar piece about significant Eastern anglers and threw in every name I could think of but, I wonder, wasn’t that just a ruse to keep as many people as possible smiling!? Even good old John Wilson (who I think of often and tenderly) won’t be remembered by those under 40 , or even 50, such is the pace of change.

I‘d put forward the possibility that the most fundamental way an angler can influence the sport is through conservation of fisheries, blooming obvious though that is. No fish, no fishers of course. Norfolk boasts a long history of environmentalists going back to the time before the word was invented. The Longs, Bishops, Buxtons, Vincents and many more were looking after the Broads and Norfolk’s coastline before anyone much thought about rivers and lakes. 

Characters like Jim and  Edwin Vincent and the Reverend Alston moved pike, rudd and tench around to preserve stocks and enhance sport and perhaps can be seen as the forerunners of more modern water warriors like Terry Lawton, Peter Suckling, Michael Robbins, Robin and Roger Combe, Tom Cook, Tim Aldiss, Charles Rangeley Wilson and Nick Zoll. Many of those names will mean next to nothing to most of us, but really they should. In the big scheme of things, isn’t it more important to save the Nar or Wensum or Stiffkey rivers than catch a big chub or come up with a new carp bait?

Mind you, I have in mind to mention Lenny Bunn, the East Anglian genius who really invented modern carp baits and fired the carp fishing revolution. Lenny began carp fishing exactly 60 years ago on rock hard waters then like Taverham Lakes and on baits like potatoes and banana which caught nothing at all. Then, in conjunction with big names of the time like Nigel Dennis, Fred Wilton and Dick Weald , Lenny began to work on high protein baits and amino acids, which he found could work carp to a frenzy of feeding activity. So, I’m highlighting a forgotten name from the past because this man was one of the founding fathers of how thousands of Norfolk carpers expect to succeed on baits today. I’m also talking about him because his work depended on knowledge of carp and observation of their behaviour. In an age when bait and rigs are often the sole consideration, it’s good to remember nothing is more important than the quarry themselves. 

I’d also suggest that for very many years, Norfolk tackle dealers played a vital function in getting anglers started and then keeping them in the sport.

I was terrified of Len Bryer in his Fakenham tackle emporium, but he took time with me as a lad and set me on a way that YouTube simply cannot. John Wilson’s Tackle Den was the shop where I became a specimen hunter and Tom Boulton’s store at Mile Cross was where I learned to ally a match fishing approach to the big fish scene I found at John’s. Even in my dotage, I have learned more from matchman Daniel Brydon at Wensum Angling than I would have thought possible. Think of the dearth of north Norfolk tackle shops these days and you have one answer why fishing in the county is not the force it once was.

In autumn 2023, I don’t know where angling is going but then, few of us have any idea where anything in the world is going. I am sure that certain names and the ideas their owners had deserve to be kept alive in the chaotic world we inhabit, where false gods are worshipped for a while before being toppled and crumpled to dust.

Norfolk fishing has had true heroes in the past, men and women who should not be forgotten so perhaps it would be fitting to end with mention of Sally Acloque , a heroine from Great Witchingham, who has put so much time into Fishing 4 Schools. After all, without children going into the sport , within a generation or two, there will be no fishing left to talk about.