Shortly before I was to jet off to China on a business trip, I received a shocking and quite frankly, brutal e-mail from Carp-Talk’s News Editor, Simon Crow. Attached were eight photographs of a fish that had become tethered and sadly died – all through ill-use of rig components that made it impossible for the fish to ever lose the lead and leader. So who’s at fault? The angler: has he not been fed the correct information on constructing a safe rig? The media: for not giving this information? The manufacturer(s): for not producing safe rig components?
Korda’s Danny Fairbrass gave his views in a later edition of Carp-Talk and I have to say I agreed with his thoughts on how the incident can’t be laid firmly at the manufacturer’s door: Danny: “If ‘Barry’ goes to a Ford dealership and buys a new Fiesta, drives it above the speed limit, loses control and kills someone, the police don’t call up Ford and arrest the designer of the car – they nick Barry.”
Thousands of pounds is spent in R&D each year by tackle companies, getting rig components to work correctly with one another, but when these are switched or misused, then horror stories like this are going to arise – and keep arising if nothing is done.
So what can be done? Seemingly manufacturers are producing rig items that are safe when used correctly, so is the media not doing enough then? Korda have now produced two ‘FREE’ DVD’s covering every aspect of angling – including rig safety – and have given away over 500,000 copies across Europe. They also run TV shows throughout the year on Sky. There are seven main carp titles – six monthlies and one weekly. Annually two or three DVD’s are launched. And there are copious amount of angling websites. All of these medias are producing material about rig safety, so why is this message not getting through? It clearly is to the masses – but that’s not good enough – it needs to be getting through to everyone, because until the day we are all using ‘safe rigs’ these tragic images will keep popping up.
Consequently, starting next month is a new series aimed at this very subject. We’ll be getting the views from all anglers – young, old, experienced, less experienced and setting the record straight on what is safe and what isn’t.
Enjoy the issue – and make sure your rigs are safe…
Joseph Wright, Editor
Shortly before I was to jet off to China on a business trip, I received a shocking and quite frankly, brutal e-mail from Carp-Talk’s News Editor, Simon Crow. Attached were eight photographs of a fish that had become tethered and sadly died – all through ill-use of rig components that made it impossible for the fish to ever lose the lead and leader. So who’s at fault? The angler: has he not been fed the correct information on constructing a safe rig? The media: for not giving this information? The manufacturer(s): for not producing safe rig components?
Korda’s Danny Fairbrass gave his views in a later edition of Carp-Talk and I have to say I agreed with his thoughts on how the incident can’t be laid firmly at the manufacturer’s door: Danny: “If ‘Barry’ goes to a Ford dealership and buys a new Fiesta, drives it above the speed limit, loses control and kills someone, the police don’t call up Ford and arrest the designer of the car – they nick Barry.”
Thousands of pounds is spent in R&D each year by tackle companies, getting rig components to work correctly with one another, but when these are switched or misused, then horror stories like this are going to arise – and keep arising if nothing is done.
So what can be done? Seemingly manufacturers are producing rig items that are safe when used correctly, so is the media not doing enough then? Korda have now produced two ‘FREE’ DVD’s covering every aspect of angling – including rig safety – and have given away over 500,000 copies across Europe. They also run TV shows throughout the year on Sky. There are seven main carp titles – six monthlies and one weekly. Annually two or three DVD’s are launched. And there are copious amount of angling websites. All of these medias are producing material about rig safety, so why is this message not getting through? It clearly is to the masses – but that’s not good enough – it needs to be getting through to everyone, because until the day we are all using ‘safe rigs’ these tragic images will keep popping up.
Consequently, starting next month is a new series aimed at this very subject. We’ll be getting the views from all anglers – young, old, experienced, less experienced and setting the record straight on what is safe and what isn’t.
Enjoy the issue – and make sure your rigs are safe…
Joseph Wright, Editor
(Click to see larger image)