Social media is something that sits rather uneasily with me. I don’t ‘do’ Facebook or Twitter, nor do I understand why people wish to share their early morning bathroom habits with thousands of others.
Their plans for the coming evening interest me not one jot and I couldn’t give a monkey’s about their pets, clothes, cars, foibles and fetishes or their politics. But I do like a bit of a chat about baits and rigs and tactics on the carp forums.
The Internet hosts a wide variety of carp forums, from the weird to the nasty, from the elitist (in their eyes anyway) to the mainstream, from the wacky to the (for want of a better word) ‘normal’. I would put Carp Forum in the latter category, as I think most of the members think of themselves as neither elite, wacky or nasty!
I never intended to get involved with any of the carp forums and was rather drawn into them by mistake, when in 2006 I found myself taken to task on Carp Forum for something that had absolutely nothing to do with me; a case of mistaken identity. I joined the forum to defend myself, won the day and have since made over 22,000 posts on Carp Forum alone. I guess I must now be something of an addict!
The world of web carping is a strange and rather weird one. And let’s face it, carp fishing itself would probably be considered pretty weird by an outsider. Keyboard warriors abound on the Net and carp fishing has its share. Thankfully they are few and far between on Carp Forum as for the most part the community is pretty easy going and there are enough experienced and well meaning anglers on there to be relied upon for good advice. True, from time to time the banter becomes rather less than good-natured but the forum is well moderated and things stay pretty ‘normal’ for the most part.
I think one of the most rewarding aspects of any forum is being able to help less experienced members with their carp fishing problems. When I was regularly in the public eye through my association with various tackle and bait companies, and through my articles both print and online, I never quite knew how my advice was being received, whereas on Carp Forum I am quickly put in my place if members think me out of order or just plain wrong! That’s said the odd brickbat does fly my way from time to time, but after over 40 years in the public eye I have developed broad shoulders and a very thick skin.
In the eight years I have been posting on Carp Forum I have made some good online mates, mainly among those guys ‘of a certain age’, who have been at this carp fishing game for many years and who understand my age-related occasional crankiness. We share a laugh and a joke behind the scenes but we are all ready and willing to pass on and share our decade’s worth of experience. I think that is what makes Carp Forum such an enjoyable place to pass the odd hour or two. This is especially true when I find myself right out of inspiration for an article requested by an editor in France or Germany, Romania or Holland – yes I still write the odd piece for those countries, though my output is a far cry from those days from when I wrote for ten different countries.
So if by chance you find yourself browsing the pages here on Haith’s Baits, and have never considered the delights of joining a forum community, you could do a lot worse than lurk and maybe even join the best carp fishing forum on the web: www.carpforum.co.uk
Ken Townley.
