An earlier thread about guides has reignited a few thoughts on certain behaviours I have noticed that are becoming more and more prevalent year after year.
A little background first if I may. Around 2 weeks ago a decent fish came off a river I fish and the pictures soon circulated around a small group of friends even before said angler was even home. The pictures then soon appeared on social media with the usual pose (you know the one that looks like the angler has never seen such a big fish before and holding it like he's looking down the barrel of a rifle).
There are much bigger fish in this river but spring time offers a shift in chances which favour the angler and as such, most rivers see their banks busier than normal. On speaking to another angler who witnessed this capture, he told me that he had to say to the captor that he should get the fish back into the water and stop taking numerous pictures of it. The fish was out of the water for several minutes. I have been told the captors post has received numerous comments and likes on social media.
It is clear that the welfare of the fish came secondary to the images that this captor wanted to portray on social media. I believe they are also affiliated to a tackle manufacturer. The adulation that follows on social media seems to be what fuels them I guess. A bit pathetic IMO. I wonder if this medium didn't exist, would they still go fishing?
In previous years I have seen certain anglers target spawning grayling and put them on social media with pictures of grayling in black spawning colours being held aloft like some kind of trophy.
I had a large fish last Sunday, I had forgotten my net in a rush to get to the water and released the fish in the water with the barbless hook slipping out easily. The welfare of the fish came first in my mind. If I had my net with me I would have taken a pic of it. I have recently been taking pics of fish in a selfie style portrait when alone with the fish halfway in the water. Easily managed with one hand with the fish barely leaving the water at any point.
Have you guys seen this? Or am i getting old before my time :D
Yes there's a guy who has struggled on a certain loch for years . He Gave up and tried a loch I fish he got lucky with a couple of smallish ferox and is now using every form of social media possible to publicise the loch and himself .
Why do they do it.? :banghead :banghead
Social media (and many open forums it has to be said) have been a bit of a disaster for fish. It seems to attract a certain egotistical type of angler. I steer clear of fishing on social media myself.
Self aggrandisement rules - mores the pity.
And don't get me started on selfies! Last year I was following a snowboarder who was filming a selfie, with a phone on a broom handle, from behind. Inane grin on his face until he left the piste!
For a while I was "curator" of the hotel's fishing history and the tradition of a free dram for landing a decent fish.
There is an evolution to "proof of capture".
Firstly, kill it and bring it home.
If your best fish, get it stuffed and put it on the wall, with your name on it.
When photography came around it was not unusual for Victorian fishing parties to kill all fish, put them in the ice house, and hire a photographer on the last day to photograph them and their catch.
From advent of the Box Brownie to beyond the Instamatic, many anglers could make their own record, but it would be a week or more before the prints were processed. So, if you returned the fish, you had no bragging rights in the bar that night.
The Polaroid Land camera put paid to that, and the first photos of fish being returned appear.
The advent of the first, expensive, digital cameras coincides with the welcome habit of returning most (if not all) fish- perhaps the two are linked.
With mobile phones now thought a necessity and the majority equipped with a (several) megapixel camera, "proof of capture" could be in the bar before you were. Your dram poured and waiting for you.
The dram aside, it was always about bragging rights. It is the means of bragging that has evolved.
Poor handling of the fish is a separate matter.
An example of the kind of selfie I was referring to...
[attachimg=2][attachimg=3]
Quote from: sagecirca on April 09, 2017, 03:51:38 PM
An example of the kind of selfie I was referring to...
[attachimg=2]
That is not a selfie - that is in fact a photograph of a fish!
What rips my knitting is when someone posts a picture of themselves holding up a nice brownie - "Look at ma personal best brownie - 2.5lbs - caught whilst fishing for the Ladeez in January"
And do not get me started on this whole "ladies" thing!
Quote from: aliferste on April 09, 2017, 06:18:55 PM
That is not a selfie - that is in fact a photograph of a fish!
It's using the 'selfie' feature of the phone (front facing camera). As I said it's the kind of selfie I was referring to.
Yeh I see a lot of big troot held up for the camera in the middle of winter! Poor show.
Quote from: aliferste on April 09, 2017, 06:18:55 PM
That is not a selfie - that is in fact a photograph of a fish!
What rips my knitting is when someone posts a picture of themselves holding up a nice brownie - "Look at ma personal best brownie - 2.5lbs - caught whilst fishing for the Ladeez in January"
And do not get me started on this whole "ladies" thing!
Yes that gets on my man boobs too. Both the out of season fish and "the ladies" reference.
Quote from: haresear on April 09, 2017, 07:05:11 PM
and "the ladies" reference.
Aye, pish isn't it! :D First sayw it being used in T&s many moons ago and the others quickly followed.
I have actually seen some people state they are going to the river to "rape the ladies"
I kid ye not!
I'm no fan of political correctness, but that is pretty vile.
sadly, "social media" seems to be the most popular method of communication these days. and i generally agree with most of the comments posted above. i've been banging on about using fly fishing methods for fish other than the more "recognized" game fish for some time & have posted photos of my captures not for self-aggrandisement (you can rip as much as you like; i'm quite capable of taking criticism :lol: ) but purely to encourage others. i have even started a "group" on facebook which has attracted similarly minded people. mostly... :roll:
so far so good. i want to make contact with fellow anglers who are passionate about catching carp on the fly and share ideas and experiences. social media appears to be the way to do this. for me it's just a different form of forum with potentially a wider audience. maybe i'm being naive?
one of the (many!) downsides of facebook is that by its very nature it's pervasive & your information is potentially accessible to everyone. on a personal note, this has meant that someone whom i hold very dear & a good personal friend cannot be a "friend" in the facebook sense due to conflicting opinions with one or more of my other "friends", who should more correctly be termed "contacts".
as far as fish photos are concerned, i've got personal experience of working with a young (& very professional) guide trying to promote himself & develop his business through facebook & other social media sites. is this wrong, or just media savvy? i would say the latter & i can assure you that his fish handling is exemplary! his photos are also in a different league to those selfies referred to by sagecirca (which are just the more modern version of those dreadful holiday snaps you used to get dragged round to see at your neighbours when you were a kid). he has often commented that don't post many fish photos. my response is that 1) i don't actually catch much worthy of a photograph and, 2) i don't take photos of everything i catch :8)
my bottom line is that it's the way things have developed. it's certainly not going to stop so you have a personal choice to either use it in a way that suits you, or not bother. how other people use it is up to them, but i agree it's pretty piss-boiling material most of the time!
I started using FB for photography 18 months ago having been invited by several people. I steer WELL clear of anything to do with fishing and some of the complete knob ends Dave has tacitly referred to above.
My honest opinion is this- it is a platform for showing off and little more than that. It is very good for keeping in touch with friends you have not seen for a while and for personal trivia; as an information resource it sucks - completely and utterly.
The timeline concept means that on any even slightly busy page or group anything useful is quickly buried and for all intents and purposes is irretrievable even if anyone knew what they were looking for to start with and could be bothered trying.
In short no one learns anything. It is 5 second attention span trivia central.
As information resources properly thought out and laid out forums and vastly better.There is no comparison.
If social media is the future of communication and human interaction we are, as a species, doomed.
Quote from: admin on April 09, 2017, 07:21:53 PM
Aye, pish isn't it! :D First sayw it being used in T&s many moons ago and the others quickly followed.
Get out of Jail Free Card for T&S-
"If the Trout be the gentleman of the stream,
the Grayling is certainly the lady."Francis Francis, "A Book on Angling" (1867).
Quote from: Inchlaggan on April 09, 2017, 08:13:57 PM
Get out of Jail Free Card for T&S-
Don't confuse this with facts Ken. I still hate the bastards. :lol:
Quote from: admin on April 09, 2017, 08:12:14 PM
The timeline concept means that on any even slightly busy page or group anything useful is quickly buried and for all intents and purposes is irretrievable even if anyone knew what they were looking for to start with and could be bothered trying.
In short no one learns anything. It is 5 second attention span trivia central.
As information resources properly thought out and laid out forums and vastly better.There is no comparison.
If social media is the future of communication and human interaction we are, as a species, doomed.
all absolutely true Fred. especially the last point :lol:
Hello my name is Liam and I have been facebook free for four years now :lol:
Apart from forums such as this I stay as far from social media as possible they don't seem to hold anything of value and the petty arguments are continuous. What it does show is the real face of the human race as people feel safe behind the key board.
Hello, my name is Ken and I have been on Facebook for over seven years.
In the early gays of t'interweb some twenty-five years ago there was no social media, there were "chatrooms" some dodgy, some useful.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association (in the USA) ran one such chatroom on CompuServe. An IBM executive from south Englandshire logged on, his new-born daughter had been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of muscular dystrophy and was on life support. Her doctors had told the parents that there was nothing to be done, take the weekend to come to terms with this before the life support was switched off and nature took its course.
The Father was desperate and the chatroom offered a faint glimmer of support. It was rumoured that a baby had received the same diagnosis in the USA and had been treated and survived. The chatroom became alive with attempts to verify this story and find the medics responsible.
This was achieved, and the medical notes transferred to the Father, who took them to the hospital on the Monday.
Treated from the notes, the child survived.
That episode, in which I played a very minor part, persuaded me of the power of t'interweb.
I choose how I use "social media" with great care and, on balance, it is OK for me. I am not blind to the problems, it is how the resource is used not the resource itself.
Retired now, my only contact with said-same Father is via Facebook. Just checked. His daughter is still with us, yes, many problems, severely limited physically, but not mentally. She can live with that, so I can.
That is a great success story Ken though there is a lot of good on the internet and vast amount of knowledge it is deeply ruined by the sheer amount of trolling going on these days which sadly over shadows such stories that you have just shared.
Thank you for sharing Tony.
I don't think we have drifted much off-topic.
Bragging of fish caught has been a major part of angling since it all began, the means may have changed, but not the impetus.
Eejits that record their own mishandling of fish are guilty of two stupidities, but there is no cure for that.
It is easy to jump on the downside of t'interweb (and there is no denying it exists) but the upside also exists.
On topic, the "social media superstars" can be identified (on social media) and their errors illuminated and explained for all to see. This may not alter their attitude, but then nor would half an hour's vigorous exercise with a four foot length of 4x4. But it might inform others.
Facebook in it's original guise was actually really useful and fairly social. You used to be connected as part of an organisation or group, such as a university. You also couldn't post things on your own page for the sake of attention seeking. You could only post up on someone elses page thus the whole social point of social media. Unfortunately when the status thing and newsfeed was introduced, it descended into nothing more than ego stroking attention seeking behaviour with people getting dopamine highs off of every "like". The science of it is actually quite interesting, the brain responding in a similar fashion as to the habit and behaviour of substance abusers.
Social media, or online whoring as it should be known has moved on though. Instagram and twitter are absolute abominations :lol:
Social media is for taking the p!ss out of people.
I try and take fishy pictures, s long as there is no danger of the phone going for a swim.
The first time I was told "no picture, no proof" was on a well known beat on the Spey one March. This was by a quite elderly ghillie who was fed up of people who were unsure what a kelt looked like.
So I rolled up at lunchtime just after catching my first ever spring salmon.
I dutifully pulled out my phone and showed him a picture of what looked like a sandeel (oops, taken from the wrong angle).
Fortunately picture number two showed the fish to be the fat pig it was.
The ghille`s eyebrows returned to their normal position from the top of his head.
Great memory of a great trip for me, as I went on to catch a salmon on each of the following two days.
Apparently catching a salmon on each of the Castle Grant beats on consecutive days almost never happens, let alone in March.
It is also possible to have a great laugh on social media, by sending anglers on wild geese chases. A friend is keen on photography and is a computer whizz. So we photoshopped pictures to mke it look like we had been fishing where we had not so the lemmings went to try places for us!
I have never had anything to do with Twitter or Facebook or Instagram and any kind of whatever else stuff there is.
Does this mean that I can count myself as an "Anti-Social Media Superstar"? :shock:
Quote from: Bobfly on April 10, 2017, 12:17:07 PM
Does this mean that I can count myself as an "Anti-Social Media Superstar"? :shock:
I can see right through your game here Vaughan.
Social media is really anti-social media so calling yourself an Anti-Social Media Superstar is like saying anti-Anti-Social Media Superstar which after simplifying by cancellation of like terms suggests you are a superstar.
Nice try. :lol:
I got my Uncle onto Facebook a short while back, he keeps in contact with my Nephews who lived with him for a few years but are now back on the mainland. If people used Facebook for this sort of thing then no one would deny it was a good tool for such things.
I have had a FB account for over 7 years, I needed to create a profile to register for my 40th reunion, I have posted about 4 posts since, guess that tells you what I think of it.
If it were not for FB then these attention seekers would be somewhere else screaming for attention, leave them on FB, that way they don't interfere with my life and vice versa.
I for my sins have no contact with Facebook or any other form of "social media".
I do not use it, I do not look at it. Never have & never will.
Tight Lines
Well for me as a user I find FaceBook ok it has helped me get back in touch with guys who i lost touch with over 40 odd years ago we now meet up on a regular basis and talk about all the teenage years and how things are today .....as for fish photos on FB i really dont bother about them if they are there i look if not well have missed nothing
Quote from: Highlander on April 10, 2017, 06:39:28 PM
.... or any other form of "social media".
I do not use it, I do not look at it. Never have & never will.
Tight Lines
I hate to say it however you are on it right now :-)
Quote
Generally a Forum is categorised by topics, people follow the topics that they are interested in and create threads of discussions. In a forum there is no concept of followers and followings.
Social Network has the concept of followers and followings and friends, this is the foundation of it.
:tongue2
I follow all that .... so we are a forum :D :D
Quote from: Bobfly on April 11, 2017, 09:04:39 PM
I follow all that .... so we are a forum :D :D
in an uncertain world it's nice to have a point of reference :D
Quote from: Element on April 09, 2017, 03:18:14 PM
The term 'social media' really grates my skin... it should be more 'antisocial media'. The whole ethos of it is geared towards utter human selfishness and ego comfort, image is everything, "look at me, I'm doing a selfie, I am an utter moron and I want to show you pictures of me, me, me, me, hey today I went fishing and here's me with a fish that I caught, am I great or what? Here I am at the museum, this is what I am wearing today, I have no other brain cells to share with the one in my head, I don't care cos this is important, look at my new shoes, look at me,me,me, I love myself.."
Couldn't agree more. My inlaws from London are forever posting pics of themselves off on foreign skiing holidays or business trips with pretensious captions beside them as if to ram it down your throat how wealthy and successful they are. I'm really not 'kin interested !!!
I get how FB can be useful for getting in touch with folk you haven't seen for years or for groups and small business to promote themselves but the whole narcissistic side of it puts me off using it.
I don't do facebook and because of this I miss out on some fishing opportunities I am told, by someone who has my mobile number and could text!!. I am also advised I miss out on photographic opportunities of rare birds too, due to lack of facebook. I am however quite happy and life still goes on, apparently some are surprised I can get through the day without walking round with a phone in my hand walking into things and people not looking where I'm going.
If you just sign up to social media, it's an absolute nightmare. You really need to spend some time properly setting them up.
Anyone posts a picture of there child, instant unfollow from me (unfollow means you can stay friends but not see their posts, basically being spineless and not telling them you dislike them or their posts)
If I don't like a post about something, again unfollow, change privacy settings and account setting and follow only groups on things you like to see and it's bearable. Just takes a little time.
A lot of things still really grind my gears. Forever writing massive argumentative posts to things, only to delete it, as arguing with stupid rarely works.
I use Twitter quite a bit for fishing and football chat. The 140 characters you are limited to allow for quick, precise posts and little messing around. A lot of football stories break quickly on Twitter as well so it serves a purpose for me.
Facebook is a weird one for me. I had an account a while ago but the amount of friend requests you get from fellow anglers that you have never spoken to never mind met is a bit of a weird one for me. Coupled with the 'angling superstars' who have only been fishing for 5 minutes certainly boils my piss!
You also see more and more examples of poor fish handling as well. Decent fish being held up with one hand, way above the water while they just have to get that hero shot.
Rant over :lol:
Quote from: claretbumble on April 21, 2017, 05:07:50 PM
Oh yeah, I hear ya! I'm a master at that!
I think a few of us do similar on other forums. Maybe we should start a thread for purely posting these deleted posts now it won't flow or make any sense but its a vent and could even be funny to read back.
I fear mine would be too obscene for some readers!
To each their own, I follow this forum, i dont do facebook, twitter, instagram or any of that stuff.
If you dont like it just stay away from it, simples.
Soz, a bit late to the party here...
I agree with most of what has been written already, but unfortunately I fear it is here to stay and will only become more prevalent. Because ours is a niche branch sport of a niche sport, a certain type of person will always feel it is possible to 'make a name for themselves', despite the majority not really giving two hoots about their constant self promotion photos and hash tagging of numerous manufacturers who they hope might chuck them a sponsorship deal (or at the least some free swag).
I'll come clean, I have a soft spot for twitter - it's almost like a group text message with mates to keep each other in the loop as to what's going on where.......but Facebook is where the real nonsense seems to reside - all those one handed shots of grayling held aloft and squeezed to death, hash tags of #horses and #walkthewalk. It's bloody pathetic.
If Sagecirca refers to who I suspect then I think it could be the same guy I had a discussion with after he posted a photo of himself holding a huge grellin with the background blurred out on photoshop. I suggested that if secrecy was that importance to him, he might consider not posting the photo at all.....unless of course he felt he had something to prove to folks. Cue response along the lines of 'I've got nothing to prove to anybody mate, I put the hard hours in blah blah blah' and a few hours later the photo is down.
Another guy who started fishing rivers about 3 seasons ago and is now representing a low end tackle firm, recently posted a gushing post about how he'd got his photo on the cover of an equally low end magazine and achieve a 'lifetime ambition'.
That's what social media does well - instils a sense of self importance to people who lack the perspective to appreciate how insignificant their endeavours are in the greater context of real life. Maybe it will go full circle sometime and people will return to concentrating on things that matter.....but I doubt it.
Matt
Quote from: mattheweastham on April 22, 2017, 09:03:47 AM
That's what social media does well - instils a sense of self importance to people who lack the perspective to appreciate how insignificant their endeavours are in the greater context of real life.
Succinct and eloquently put Matt. :D
i'd go along with that, too. it's pretty much all playing and has no greater meaning. i do my fair share of fish posting, primarily to let my wife know that i am genuinely out wasting my time fishing & not carrying on an illicit affair with some floozy. it also lets my climbing buddies know i'm not pushing up any daisies just yet
i do like sharing experiences & ideas with folks from across the globe & i genuinely enjoy seeing their photos and videos. i find it quite inspirational. hence the Carp Champions group. as we've said earlier, that could be better achieved through a forum, but Facebook, for instance, seems to be the main or only way a lot of people communicate nowadays. sadly we don't have many (any?) australian carp fishermen on WFF, despite my best efforts to invite them
Quoteprimarily to let my wife know that i am genuinely out wasting my time fishing & not carrying on an illicit affair
:)