Mark Barrett: The InterviewWithRay Best
UKMA – How long have you been an angler and how did you get started in the sport? Mark Barrett (MB) - I think the first time I went I would have been about 6 years old and my uncle took me the first time. From then on in I used to fish most weekends with my Dad, though mainly in the warmer months as my Dad wasn’t and still isn’t that much of a winter angler. So as I am 39 next weekend that would makes it about 30 years man and boy. UKMA - what is your most memorable moment as an angler? MB - God, that’s an almost impossible question to narrow to one answer. I would say that a 24lb 4oz pike I caught in a press match in Ireland two years ago is one of the most memorable as it was caught from a huge sheet of water, won me the match and pipped the Angling Times into second place with just 7 minutes of the match left, which was quite good as I was representing the mail. Also it was caught on a foot long lure that my best mate and angling partner told me I would never catch on, but I had a hunch and it paid off. UKMA – who are the anglers both past and present who have had the most influence over your personal angling career? MB - I would say James Holgate who has sadly passed away recently as he gave me my first real break into angling writing and was a genuinely nice bloke. Mick Brown who’s book I used to read and re-read as a kid and who taught me a lot about how to act as a consultant, always gives good advice and is a smashing bloke, Nev Fickling who has always been a source of good advice, but my out and out angling hero has always been Dick Walker, because in just about every aspect of angling he set the standards that we all try to emulate.
UKMA – What personally sacrifices have you had to make to get to where you are in the world of angling? MB - Oh good grief where do I start? Well if you want to go down this route then forget about having the finer things in life, like nice car, big house etc. Most of the times I have made the average church mouse look like Richard Branson! I have missed countless nights out, family occasions etc, you don’t get those back and it has cost me more jobs than I like to think. It also made me at times a bit of a sponge as I never had any money so I had to borrow from usually my parents and generally live a bit of an alternative lifestyle to say the least! UKMA – What are the elements of modern angling that you find the most annoying and why? MB - I detest the way that carp fishing has become this huge monster that rules the roost. All the money and power is with carp fishing and it is to the detriment of the sport as other species and other anglers are treated with contempt as in many ways are the fish. Carp fishing has made the sport lop sided because youngsters start there, which is hardly surprising as it’s pushed down their throats by the media. That’s why I hope our new mag "Fish n tips" does well, as it’s an all round magazine with carp having their place the same as every other species. UKMA – What was the single most soul destroying experience of your angling career and how did it come about? MB - I can’t really say that anything has really had that effect, though being secretary of the PAC does come the closest to that description. I took a whole lot of crap through doing that job, some of it justified most of it other people’s doing but I served my time out and the club in the time that the committee that I served on was as strong as it has ever been. You can imagine then when you do all of that how much contempt you have when you see some other anglers that always maintained that they didn’t join clubs or made similar statements about angling politics, setting themselves up as angling’s saviours in some publicity hungry little quango which they can use to boost their profile. Your fooling no one chaps, especially those that have done some time on the front line.
UKMA – In your opinion, what factors man made or natural are playing the biggest part in the decline in predatory fish numbers on the Fenland drains and why ? MB - What decline? I don’t think there’s any decline in predator numbers at all. Friends and I have caught about the same and sometimes more fish than we have in the past. But having said that the fishing has been patchier, but in my opinion that’s because the silver and prey fish numbers are at the highest they have been in my lifetime. Large prey numbers means well fed predators, which in turns makes the fishing that bit harder as the predators feed less.
UKMA – How would you educate and prevent the removal of Predatory and all coarse fish by migrant workers and do you see this as a major problem? MB - I think it’s a prayer that goes something along the lines of; “Lord give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change and the strength to change the things I cannot accept”. To me that just about it sums it up. You will never change everyone’s minds on this whether they are from Eastern Europe or from the UK. Both of whom take fish, for whatever reason. What has happened is we have ended up with some half baked, knee jerk legislation that serves little purpose because the problem was never with the laws but with the enforcing of those laws. We now have a situation where you cannot take a carp from a fen drain, but you can take as many zander as you want. How is that right?
UKMA - Do you agree with competitive predator fishing? If not why and how would you change the sport to make it more acceptable? MB - Where they are properly run, properly marshalled and the pike’s welfare is paramount then I don’t have a problem. When they are part of the Angling Trust/ Angling times match then I have nothing but contempt for the entire match and qualification system for that match which is as bent as a Barrymore pool party in my opinion. We (the PAC) were asked to get involved with drafting some rules for the match a few years back and the organisers of the qualifiers did not want to know as part of the plans were to have regional semis then a 200 man final to try and lessen the impact of the anglers numbers on the match venues. The qualifying organisers didn’t like it and clearly were more interested in having their yearly social regardless of what happened to the pike, they didn’t even have a rule to say that you had to use a wire trace for God’s sake!!
UKMA – With the average age of a Rod Licence holder now officially being 40, do you feel the spiralling decline in the numbers of young anglers joining the sport can be turned around and if so how? MB - Of course you can but not in its present state. Angling’s a sport run by old men wondering why they can’t appeal to youngsters, sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings chaps but you’re out of touch. We need to make angling appear fun, sexy and a cool thing to do. While it costs a small fortune to do that and carp fishing is the worst offender here, that’s naturally going to price anglers out of it. Why did more kids of my generation fish more? Because you had probably one rod and caught whatever you could manage to tempt. You could carry or lash everything to your bikes and disappear off for the day and you didn’t have paranoid parents worried that there was a paedophile around every corner like parents do today. Fishing was something you did with your mates and it was cheap. Today it costs £5 and more a day to fish which is too much for kids to go every day. The angling media have drilled it into everyone that carp are the only thing worth catching and because of that it has becomes the cool thing to do. Great if you own a tackle company, not so great for the sport in general. Look across the continent or even to the states, there’s a whole lot more kids fish there. Why? Because it’s seen as a family activity and for the greater part all they have are a few lures and a lure rod. Its cheap, the kids are active and it’s seen as fun. Compare that to having to carry multiple carp rods, bedchair etc. even match fishing with its inordinate amount of gear has gone down the same road, about the same time as commercial pools and carp came to the fore.
UKMA – If you could go back in time and change the past, what one event would you like to change? MB - About 3 years ago, we were filming a catfish programme for online fishing TV at Fenland Fisheries in Earith and very early on in the session I had a 37.15 carp on a livebait rig meant for cats. That fish came in very easily, like a wet sack in fact. When I got it on the bank the hook had come out in the net, but the hook mark was clearly in the bottom lip. I held the fish up for the cameras but it was peeing down with rain and the camera kept fogging up. So I weighed and sacked it whilst we waited for my mate Richard to appear to have an extra set of hands. However it was instantly apparent there was something wrong with the carp because it went straight to the bottom and lay on its side and whatever we did it couldn’t hold it upright. We made the decision there and then to take a few seconds of film, then get it straight back, which is why you don’t really see much of it in the film. However even holding it out of the sack in the margins didn’t help, so I stripped off and took the fish into the deepest water that we could to try and get as much oxygen into it as possible. We also sent Rich, who had arrived in-between, time to get Mike Hawes who owns the water to come round as we thought he may want to put it in an oxygenated tank in the fish house. All this time the fish was barely moving, its gills were working really slowly and it was still peeing it down. As Rich arrived back with Mike the fish started to move and kick and Mike told me to let it swim off, which it did, albeit very slowly. I had huge reservations about whether it was going to survive and it wasn’t a huge surprise to be told that it was found dead a few weeks later. To this day I couldn’t tell you what was wrong with that fish. It barely left the water, it wasn’t dropped and there was no obvious reason for it dieing. However it was what came next that made a bad situation worse. Mike got loads of moans from the anglers on there that I had killed the fish and one misinformed angler even rang the Angling Times who left the reporter in no doubt as to the fact that he was a complete idiot, who didn’t know what he was talking about. At the end of the day there was no reason for the fish to keel over and I wish now that I hadn’t caught it, but there was obviously something wrong with it. Those individuals that accuse me of killing it I hope never have the same thing happen to them because it’s not nice, especially when people who know nothing about the event claim you were at fault. Ultimately I have known Mike at Fenland Fisheries for many years, been a member of the old syndicate on willow and fished Mike's other lakes for years. I have also fished with Mike on other venues and if I really had done something so wrong that it had resulted in the death of Mike's biggest carp and so sizeable asset, do you think I would still be welcome on the fishery? And yes I am still welcome. So to all the sad muppets that think I was in some way responsible; get a life and realise that we are not fishing for model fish, but for living, breathing creatures that will at some point transform into non living, non breathing ones, so get over it please!!!. So to answer the question I would go back and change that event to not catching the carp, but I bet it would have still died.
Foot NoteAs you can tell Mark is very honest and also aware of what is happening in the world of angling today. Some may say he is over opinionated but at least he tells it how it is with out holding any punches. We did remove the odd sentence and phrase here and there to protect the innocent who may be reading this but on the whole, these are Marks own words and un-edited. UKMA would like to thank Mark for making the time to write for us and educate the angling public with is well informed Predator features and for his eye opening and honest comments during this interview. This Feature Is Sponsored By
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Whilst out on the bank with Mark earlier this year, we got a golden opportunity to interview this well voiced angler and get his opinions and thoughts on some of those questions we would all like to ask but usually are not allowed too. Some of Marks answers are based on personal experiences and because of this his opinions may be controversial to some but he does make some very good points. So after very carefully consideration Marks answers and by using some very appropriate editing, we are now ready to open the pages on the Mark Barrett Interview.
