R
Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA)
Guest
You "fiddle" reminds me of somthing.
It would be about 1964 when Tag Barnes joined Sportex in Sheffield. in addition to his normal duties which as far as I could see was general dogsbody, he was given the job of designing a range of Hollow Glass rods with the Sportex label. Later that year, a number of these rods were exhibited on the Sportex stand at the National Angling Show.
Of course **** Walker was there and he came up on the stand. Tag handed him a rod to examine. Walker looked it up and down and said....... "Werrrrl it's glass......"
Walker recently had gone into print to state that glass fibre still had not yet equalled split cane and anyway, who would want to make a violin out of glass fibre? Tag Barnes countered this by saying that perhaps someone should.... it might sound much better!
It didn't take more than a couple years when **** was finally convinced. He had bought a Milbro Enterprise 13 foot float rod, and had designed one of the first lightweight glass fly rods for reservoir fishing. Not long after that he designed a whole range of glass rods for coarse and fly fishing for Hardys, including probably the biggest British made selling fly rod of all time, the 9 1/4 foot #7/8 Reservoir Superlight.
And he told me in a letter that other than a little 8 foot split cane fly rod he had kept for brook fishing, he had either given away or dumped all his cane rods and good riddance too!
The big dumping came I think when he moved from Hitchin to Flitwick! You were lucky to be able to get in at the local jumble sales at that time.
By 1974, of course, **** was into carbon fibre rods. He was the first man in the world to catch a trout on a carbon fibre fly rod!
It would be about 1964 when Tag Barnes joined Sportex in Sheffield. in addition to his normal duties which as far as I could see was general dogsbody, he was given the job of designing a range of Hollow Glass rods with the Sportex label. Later that year, a number of these rods were exhibited on the Sportex stand at the National Angling Show.
Of course **** Walker was there and he came up on the stand. Tag handed him a rod to examine. Walker looked it up and down and said....... "Werrrrl it's glass......"
Walker recently had gone into print to state that glass fibre still had not yet equalled split cane and anyway, who would want to make a violin out of glass fibre? Tag Barnes countered this by saying that perhaps someone should.... it might sound much better!
It didn't take more than a couple years when **** was finally convinced. He had bought a Milbro Enterprise 13 foot float rod, and had designed one of the first lightweight glass fly rods for reservoir fishing. Not long after that he designed a whole range of glass rods for coarse and fly fishing for Hardys, including probably the biggest British made selling fly rod of all time, the 9 1/4 foot #7/8 Reservoir Superlight.
And he told me in a letter that other than a little 8 foot split cane fly rod he had kept for brook fishing, he had either given away or dumped all his cane rods and good riddance too!
The big dumping came I think when he moved from Hitchin to Flitwick! You were lucky to be able to get in at the local jumble sales at that time.
By 1974, of course, **** was into carbon fibre rods. He was the first man in the world to catch a trout on a carbon fibre fly rod!
)
