My First Rod

[Blunderer]

My first rod was a birthday present in 1979. It was a white, solid glass fibre, 5.5 foot spring little thing. And I loved it. I used to go perch fishing in millponds and it was perfect for getting in holes in the bushes and into tight swims. In retrospect it was my first stalking rod! I could feel every bounce of every fish on it.
A year or two later I got a 12ft match rod. But compared to my first rod it felt stiff, heavy and awkward. I carried on using my little white rod regardless.

Unfortunately, my rod was destined to sleep with the fishes together when a mate ont he opposite bank hooked my tackle and hauled the whole thing into a lodge. I was devastated.

I never loved a rod more than that first rod, which served me well for years.

Can you remember yours?

It sounds like we had the same rod except I've still got mine, a little Daiwa, out in the garage. (It's not been used since about 1979 though!)

It wasn't my first rod though - that was a green solid glass 9ft jobbie from the long-gone fishing shop in York Rd in Ilford. Coupled with an Intrepid Black Prince with a wonky bail arm, this was the outfit I used to blank at venues all over Essex! A few years later, I bought a hollow glass Shakespeare match rod, which was three feet longer and half a pound lighter, but it never really caught my imagination the same way.

I still have my son's first rod although he hasn't been fishing since he was 15. It is a Daiwa Ivan Marks match rod of 11ft.

Still in good condition.....

My first rod was a garden cane with a bobbin for a reel and elastic bands for eyes, but I caught with it though, my first rod proper was a built cane fly rod, then a greenheart 3 piece and a tank ariel for piking

[Dicky (Angling Trust PAC)]

Like Monk my first rod was a garden cane with a Wilco (Woolworths) hook to nylon tied on to the end. I used it for a couple of years to catch record-shaking gudgeon and small sergeants on the Great Ouse.

My first 'proper' rod was a float/ leger rod I bought from many months of saved pocket money in a tackle shop in Bedford. It was a cumbersome 11ft job with the screw fitting for swing or quiver. Despite the weight it served me well and landed many barbel and chub from the Teme.

I'm sure I still have it somewhere but it hasn't seen service for 15 years or so.

[Blunderer]

Before the aforementioned rod wa bought I was already obsessed with fish and the underwater world.

After we found a dead stickleback in the pond near his house, we made a wooden raft and tied onto the bottom of it a piece of cotton with a bent pin attached. We hooked a garden worm on it and set it sailing on a voyage accross the lake.

Two hours later when it landed again, it contained nothing.

Needless to say, we hooked the ex-stickleback onto the pin and took it him to claim glory from his Mum.

[The Bone Collector]

Bamboo cane with a piece of nylon, upgraded to a tank Ariel with a very through through through through quadruple action.

I used to have a bamboo roach pole, it was an horrible thing, everytime you got a decent fish on it it would bend at the top and you used to have to put it under the kettle and sraighten it up again, my tank ariel was really heavy and made an excelent weapon

[Alan Tyler]

There's poles and poles when it comes to bamboo! In the late'60 there was a flood of Japanese 4-piece 20' loach poles (oops, solly!) which are probably what you had - a half-pounder bent them round in a quarter-circle! Still great fun, though,a nd I have happy memories of a bag of Laleham roach on mine.
Then there were the pukka ones; Peeks with paper thin brass ferrules, and Sowerbutts with butts of bored-out mahogany(!) - these were "proper stiff" until the very tip, and wouldn't have dared take on a set!

[Alan Tyler]

I hated my first rod; eight feet of ash, I think; a tank aerial would have felt like a fairy wand by comparison. Then one of those Jap combinations, that made a 5' spinning rod (useless) or an 8' fly rod - surprisingly good as a fly rod but not much use on the Grand Union Canal.
Once I finally got five whole, green pounds to spend, I was torn between a pretty, but heavy, Dawson's Sabina in dark split cane, or a Martin James hollow glass rod. I chose wrong, and I'm still playing around with 'orrible bits of bamboo.