I’ve been an avid
watcher of fishomania for over a decade, the one opportunity we get
in the UK to watch real live competitive fishing on the TV. I enjoy
watching the programme a lot, the opportunity to see what’s going
on, who’s catching and the regular half hourly weigh-ins take the
guesswork out of the proceedings. I’d promised myself that one of
these days I will go and watch in person – each year it comes
around and it’s too late to attend or some other distraction, and
that’s that. Still, I will go one of these days.
However, and there’s
always a however, each year I always come away feeling a bit
disappointed for a range of reasons.
- It always seems so desperately unfair. Granted that Cudmore is so much fairer than Hayfield, it appears that post draw some of the anglers know they are on to a hiding to nothing. I don’t know that this could be fixed, but when you see that last year’s champion came in last this time around, it’s hard to remove the lottery element from the match fishing result. This, incidentally, is one of the reasons I don’t match fish regularly – I’d rather the best angler wins, rather than the luckiest draw arm. At least this time it wasn’t an end peg (and nor was it at the home internationals the next day), or even worse the same peg as last year (as happened all too often at Hayfield.
- There is often a sense of anti-climax at the end of the match, whilst it’s good to get the regular weigh-ins there is a distinct lack of excitement going into the last hour. I know Sky would like to stage manage the process to the last minute (and I recall a close finish with Nathan Watson a while ago is memory serves), I think it might make life a little more interesting if there was no weigh-in 9 – leave the last hour free and let the experts try to guestimate what's going on. Maybe we could ask the roving reporters for a fish or weight estimate to keep the interest up.
- Show us some proper action. I want to see a float go under or a tip wrap around. I know this might not make for great television, but I don't need to look at the angler (some of them are note exactly oil paintings to start with), but isn't there some way we could split screen with what's going on at water level rather than some fat bloke sat on box.
- Shut Keith up. Just a little. I know he has a point of view on everything and like many anglers he thinks he knows it all, but actually, he doesn't. So from time to time shut up and let us see what happening. Contrary to his comments, there were crucians caught on day one (it was in on the many film montages) and please come up with some new anecdotes (fish cant swim backwards) , it's getting a little dull now.
- Think about some better demonstrations – how about showing how a pole/elastic set-up works, but pre-record it. Show some underwater footage of a fish taking a bait, just add a little bit more interest.
- Improve the vocabulary of the roving reporters, please. Its a little embarrassing, and for goodness sake, give us some of the key weights (like bigger carp) in pounds and ounces as well as kilos. I know we're trying to be modern, but there's really no need.
Those are my main
gripes. I'd like to see a few more fish caught and a fairer pegging
set-up, but that would probably be asking a bit much.
But big thanks to some
of the changes – no celeb match was a great improvement, now we
just need a way to make the home international a bit more of a
competition.
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