L.P.Hartley wrote; "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently."

This is certainly true of Angling, in all its forms. To begin with there were no man-made materials suitable for the manufacture of rods, reels or lines.I never saw anyone fishing with a stick and a bent pin, but some of the tackle in use between the wars not much different to that used by Isaac Walton three hundred years earlier.
It was not uncommon to see a line of anglers on a canal bank using a hazel or ash wand with five or six feet of gut firmly fixed to the tip. They caught fish, mostly gudgeon and small roach. Small boys employed similar tactics to catch 'tiddlers'of unknown species.
Commercial tackle manufacturers constructed rods of Bamboo, Built Cane, Lancewood or Greenheart. The angler chose his weapon according to his financial status, although the most expensive greenheart salmon rod cost only a few pounds. But between the wars it was beyond the reach of most working men. Five pounds a week was riches, a 'thousand a year man' was a rarity to be spoken of in hushed tones.
At the other end of the scale were men working in the mines and steelworks for about two pounds fifty with unemployment benefit at one pound thirty p for a married couple and eighty five pence for a single man. And they had to prove they were genuinely looking for work.
However, in spite of what the modems regard as primitive tackle, men-and 3 women-caught fish. It is worth remembering that the record salmon of fifty odd pounds was caught by a lady and the heaviest fish caught in British waters, a tunny of over eight hundred pounds, were both caught using built cane rods and centrepin reels tailored to the needs of the type of angling. Men fished in their own locality for the most part-certainly within an hour's cycle ride of home-so that sea anglers tended to live on or near the coast. Distance casting was unknown-fifty yards was about the maximum using a three ounce lead. Weights and distance increased with the arrival of the fixed spool reel in the late thirties, but the hundred yard cast was a post-war phenomenon.
The history of angling development is a fascinating subject and I would respectfully suggest that anglers should read more of the old writers. Not going to the lengths of obtaining a first editions of the twelfth century treatise on fly fishing by Lady Bernhers, of course, The only thing about angling which hasn't changed is the jokes. Here is an example I first heard seventy years ago; it appeared in a well known journal which shall be nameless.

DAI "Where you off,Ianto?" IANTO,"Football" DAI."In this weather !You must be mad! Come with me instead." IANTO"Where you going,then?" DAI. "Fishing"