Carp fishing and social media now go hand in hand.
Catch a good fish and within minutes the photographs can be online.
There are positives to that.
Anglers can share captures, learn from each other, discover new tackle and keep up with what is happening across the sport.
But there is another side.
Social media has created a constant pressure to catch, photograph and publish.
That can change the reason people go fishing.
Instead of enjoying a quiet session, there can be a feeling that a trip only matters if it produces content.
Big fish generate likes.
Famous lakes generate attention.
Perfect photographs matter almost as much as the capture itself.
That can create some strange behaviour.
Fish get held longer for photos.
Swims become crowded after captures appear online.
Certain lakes receive huge amounts of pressure because a handful of fashionable fish have appeared repeatedly on Instagram and Facebook.
There is also a tendency to make carp fishing look far easier than it really is.
Nobody posts the twelve blank nights that came before the thirty-pounder.
You normally see the result, not the work.
That can give newer anglers a completely unrealistic idea of what carp fishing is actually like.
Social media itself is not the enemy.
It has connected anglers in ways that would have been impossible years ago.
The problem comes when fishing starts being performed for an audience.
There is something to be said for catching a carp, taking a couple of photographs and simply enjoying the moment without worrying how many people are going to see it.