The Old Specimen Groups

  • Thread starter Ron Troversial Clay
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Ron Troversial Clay

Guest
The difficulty is getting in contact with all the old group members. Many are either dead or do not fish anymore. I know a few around this neck of the woods and during the next few weeks I will attempt to broach the subject to see what the reaction is.

It would be nice to get a few angling personalities such as Des Taylor, Matt Hayes, Keith Arthur, Fred J Taylor, Barrie Rickards, **** Clegg or even Pete Thomas, who is still alive.

I will also inform Pat Walker.

My great friend Eric Hodson would have been able to do a fantastic job as he knew everyone on this field. I will also write to AT, AM, Angling Star, and all the other mags. Unfortunatly Eric is ill, but I will contact him.

Maybe this could coincide with the launching of Barrie Rickards Biography of **** Walker.

Lets see how this goes.
 
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The Monk

Guest
thanks Bob, I did organise a few events as RO for NASA jointly with the Manchester Group, in 1995 I set up a celebration for my local AC, The Middleton Angling Society, who were celebrating their 150 year (the fourth oldest club in Britain by the way), thanks to the help of my good friends Ron and Eric, we pulled together quite a number of the old Northern Specimen Group. It was great to have on stage Tag Barnes, **** Cleggt, Eric and Ron of course, Barrie Rickards, we also had many visiting anglers who put on excellent slide shows and talks, these included Tony Mile, Gordon Burton, Fred Sykes, Steve Burke, Dr Rex Elgood, and many more, Martin James acted as compre for the day and the support recieved from NASA and the SACG (now SAA of course) really was second to none.

The organisation of these things though is something else, its takes a lot of time and planning Bob and it really is difficult to get someone to get involved and do it all, NASA was very lucky to have the people it had at the time and so was NASG of course. These things can be a logistical nightmare, but good luck to anyone who can pull things together again.
 
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The Monk

Guest
I`ll try and get over at Christmas Ron, really must get to see Eric again, its been a while!
 
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Ron Troversial Clay

Guest
By the way I have a chat with Tony Miles today who certainly was the man who formed the Coventry Specimen Group together with Peter Rayment and Dave Ball.

The great fly fisherman involved was Mick Nicholls who taught many of the more famous reservoir anglers of their day all about it.
 
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The Monk

Guest
The Coventry SG was of course a very well known and established group and aparently famous for their gettogethers, possibly a lesser well known group was the late Chris Binyons Coventry Circus Group. Chris was of course an excellent writer along with his co partner in crime, Barry the hat
 
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The Monk

Guest
Tony of is course a very accomplished angler and a real gentleman of specialist angling. I haver all his books and have had the great privillage of being present at quite a number of his talks.
 
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Robert Woods 1

Guest
Monk,
I used to like Chris's excapades pike fishing on Bala in old Coarse Fisherman mag. Pity I threw them all out...!!!
 
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Ron Troversial Clay

Guest
One thing I have learned over the past few years is not to destroy angling history.

Look out those old articles Monk and keep them somewhere safe. One day they will be very valuable.
 
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Robert Woods 1

Guest
Ron,
When I decided to "fly the nest" with a very nice young lady I got rid of half my fishing books and most of my mags...sob...sob.
 
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The Monk

Guest
history is indeed very important and its surprising just how much modern history hads been lost, or indeed how some pople try to bend facts to suit themselves. We really do need a national angling museum/database in where we could store all this information and artifacts, Barry Rickards has wrote about this many times.
 
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Ron Troversial Clay

Guest
One book, or set of books that someone must do one day is to compile every article that **** Walker ever wrote for Angling Times.

Thats 30 years x 52 weeks thats 1560 articles. Richard Lee told me he has them all on record at Emap.

What a read that would be.
 
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John Hepworth

Guest
It's a strange affect that the female has on man. I sold almost all my tackle to get married. Fools rush in...

I tried to get S.G. up and running up here a couple of years ago but found little interest. Many reckoned they 'specimen' anglers, but never moved from their bedchairs and bivvy.
 
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Robert Woods 1

Guest
John,
I have to confess...I also sold most of my tackle and took to golf...!!!. But I'm alright now as started back in 1999 with new gear.
 
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John Hepworth

Guest
Didn't take long for me to get back. Married December 65, fishing the Bann June 66.
 
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Ron Troversial Clay

Guest
There is a tendency these days to think that "Specimen" anglers fish only for carp using the four big "Bs" - Bivvy, Bedchair, Buzzers and Bolt rigs.

In some tackle catalogues, all you see under specimen tackle is carp rods.

What people don't understand is that a top class match, a delicate quiver tip rod and even a pole are important equipment for the all round big fish hunter these days.

Type casting and pigeon holing are part and parcel of modern angling today - and it's wrong.
 
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Ron Troversial Clay

Guest
When I got married I found someone to carry my tackle...... :eek:)
 
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