Pike fishing - growing old, gracefully..?

Poking about the Fens last season, I saw one junior out on his own - a lad who's already got the makings of a good pike angler, judging by the picture he showed me on his mobile phone of a cracking twenty and his description of how he caught it.

Assuming he sticks with it, obviously - amid all the other distractions that fill our late teens, such as the female of the species and various ways of getting off your chump.

Other than young Ash - as opposed to the other two older and larger Ashes I know - I can count the number of pike anglers aged under 30 I either fished with or bumped into on the fingers of one hand.

Both the pike and pike fishing now face all kinds of threats I never even dreamt of when I caught my first one getting on for 40 years ago.

Yet while many despair at the impact of all kinds of modern-day predators on our beloved pike, I wonder if the obvious is passing us by. If we don't do more to encourage the pike anglers of tomorrow, those of us who love our sport today could well turn out to be its last generation.

For if we can't teach today's young anglers that there's more to life than carp puddles, there might not be much else left of fishing full stop, in 20 years' time.