who started this site and why?

[MT]

who started this site and why?

just wondering who started the site and why?

how long has it been going?

who runs it now?

[sless]

a man called john bridges (jaybee) started this site a lot of years ago
and it has just went from stregnth to stregnth
tc is doing a great job of looking after all of us now

why did he start it ?

god knows

but i have made many friends and even went on fishing trips
with clubs all over the country and been made very welcome

[Charlton]

with a little help from me as well sless.
The whole idea was for anglers in the north east to share their wealth of information on local marks with each other and those new to the sport. To give up to date catch reports. As you can see it has grown and spread just a little. We never envisaged that the site would attract so much attention and be the fore runner of many others. the hardest part in the beggining was to get others to share their angling knowledge and stories wether just through not wanting to tell anyone or just fear of the internet, but we managed it.

[sless]

its worked out quite well hasnt it alan

[MT]

wheres jeebe now? agree its a great site for any level of fishing ive learnt loads specially about the boats where i have little experience.
well done to jeebee and alan...............

[MT]

ps

forgot to mention a thanks to everyone else whos helping to run the site now it is a very informative and friendly site. (most of the time)!

[Mogthemackem]

Agreed Ninja. You meet some canny and useful contacts of this site

[Charlie_Thompson]

JayBee runs another website/s mainly to do with photography now I think. Someone will have an url. Another lad from down south Elton Murphy(?) actually hosts and possibly pays for the running of this one. he owns anglersnet or summat like that

[MT]

excuse my ignorance but whats a url charlie

JayBee runs another website/s mainly to do with photography now I think. Someone will have an url. Another lad from down south Elton Murphy(?) actually hosts and possibly pays for the running of this one. he owns anglersnet or summat like that

[Oblickta]

uniform resource locater is the plebian way of saying website addy.

[elton]

Yep. Jaybee started sea-angler.org years ago, far longer than he\'d care to admit

I took over about 5 years ago and have left things as much as they were as possible. There were a few problems, as the old domain was owned by the ISP, so nesa.co.uk was registered.

I\'ve done bugger all with the site since - family hassles (becoming a dad, twice), business commitments (going self-employed and running a crap business!) and other website commitments have kept me away.

Also, Tony Cutter and his team of moderators have done such a fantastic job that I\'ve never really NEEDED to pay much attention.

Yes, I\'ve paid the bills, but knowing that one of the UK\'s oldest sea fishing websites is still running is payback enough for me.

[Stores]

Knew I\'d find it somewhere. This is the link to Jaybee\'s site

http://northeastwildlife.co.uk/

[SIXFOOTSTEVE]

And now we\'re waiting for the site upgrade with baited breath

[Norman]

Just for the record, this is John (Jaybee) way back in 2002 on a trip out on Slinky Kate





another memorable picture of the same trip

breaking the Ice to get out .....

[Jaybee1]

Thanks for the reminder Norman
I lost 7 stone after that photo was taken

Why was the site built?? - well if my fragile memory remembers correcty it was along the lines of::-

NESA was started many, many years ago at a time when you couldnt even find an email address in the sea angling press to add to a links page.
Apart from Bennetts of Sheffield, NESA was probably one of the only other sea fishing site in the UK.
The only other available internet fishing communication was through an email list which I belonged to along with the likes of Davy Holt, Mel Russ etc.
NESA was certainly the first UK sea fishing site to have a full blown forum and from the outset that attracted visitors from all around the world. Even all those years ago there was over a 1000 members on the forum.
The site was built simply on a whim - I'd fished all my life and I had just got the interent so I decided to build a fishing website.
I cant recall how AC and I go together but Alan was certainly a visitor to the site from probably week one - so he is without doubt the longest running current member of NESA (15 years or so Alan????)
From the outset the objective was to build the best possible site we could.
Alan supplied all the catch reports, photos, competition info, articles on boating etc etc.
I did the graft and behind the scenes hard work. And it was hard work. Everything that went on the site had to be sourced first hand (remember that there weren't that many people on the internet at the time) so most info was got by phoning people - endless phone calls and dial up internet connection that at the time cost you by the minute racked up quarterly bills in excess of £800 over several years.
Everything was done by phone so when I put up a page about the NE top anglers three favourite marks and tips on how to fish them I had to ring the likes of Jim Doby, Tony Anderson etc and write what they were telling me down long hand - then stick it on the web.
Without being vain I would guess that NESA was the starting block for 90% of subsequent sea fishing sites. During the first few weeks of NESA I had contacted Conoflex, Titan, Gemini and Ian Gold asking if I could put their catalogues on NESA - free of charge. They were happy for me to do that and after a year or so all (except Ian Gold if I remember) had their own sites because of the internet interest that had been generated in their products via NESA.
Anything that Alan and I thought would make the site better went onto NESA.
Rig drawings, bait pages, boat pages, maps and marks pages etc etc - we tried to cover as much as we could to give NE anglers somewhere special to come to.
There were those gloating moments too on NESA like when I was emailed a photo of the UK casting team in America, taken minutes after they had won the world championship - the photo was on NESA within 30 minutes of them winning whereas the magazines couldnt publish it for almost two months
There were heart warming moments too - a woman contacted NESA about an old photo she had seen on NESA (One of Alans I recall) which showed her grandfather (or dad - I cant remember) fishing on one of the piers. She didnt have any photos of him so Alan supplied her with a copy.

Over time the site continued to grow and get bigger and bigger up to the point where (because of ill health) it really just became to much for me.
By this time Elton was running anglersnet which had carved out a reputation with freshwater anglers in the same way NESA had done with sea fishing and Elton and I had become very good friends.
Both of us had been offered money for our sites by some of the big dot coms going around at that time but neither of us sold out.
Chatting to Elton on the phone one day I told him I was thinking of scrapping NESA. He said he wanted it - I said he could have it - a deal was done and NESA moved over to Elton.
For a short while I continued to look after the site but didnt have the enthusiam to do it justice - step in Tony Cutter.
Contact was made with TC to see if he would like to administer NESA in place of me and the rest - as they say - is history.
The current standing of NESA is down to TC who has looked after the site in a way that had he been around all of those years ago would have had AC and me knocking on his door to look after the site then
Well done TC - if ever the right man was ever picked for a job then it's you.
A final word about Alan Charlton. As loyal as any football fan, he has been in the background of NESA for all of those years and in reality was the backbone of the site, virtually every fish caught at every competition and every bit of fishing news came via Alan to NESA. Without his input NESA would have only been 5% of what it was.
Oh - let's not forget sless - another very long standing and loyal member of NESA whose often dry and witty input could lift a grey heart on a bleak day.

So there you have it - NESA - probably the longest running UK sea fishing site, which has had countless numbers of visitors though it doors - all of whom were and are made welcome.
Not bad going for a little fishing site started all those years ago and one, like anglersnet, that has outlived all those fancy dot coms that were so keen to get our sites on their books - where are they now??

As for me - well I dumped the fishing because of my health and took up my photography again. Now I supply countryside teams, councils, schools, wildife charities and organisations around the UK wildlife images free of charge.
If the sun is out then so am I, wandering along hedgerows looking for flowers, insects, birds and everything else that grows or moves in the wild.
Oh - and I started a website for my photography
Cant keep an old man down.
Thanks for the intial enquiry about NESA it was nice to bring back old memories.
Cheers
Jaybee

PS- ALan - if my memory got things a bit skewed or you want to add anything then it would be nice to read your thoughts.