You"re first tackle

[chefster]

A couple of things lately,have made me think about the gear i started off with.11FT Split cane rod,Intrepid Black Prince reel,some quills,perch bobbers and a whicker creel.What about you lads,what gear can you remember starting with??...Cheers Gaz

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Black Prince reel?
you were lucky - All I had was an old 11ft rod and a battered metal centre pin

I did get a Black Prince reel later - my first "proper" reel

 

[chefster]

Black Prince reel?
you were lucky - All I had was an old 11ft rod and a battered metal centre pin

I did get a Black Prince reel later - my first "proper" reel

Can you remember how much the Black Prince cost?

 

[binka]

Old fusty stuff from the late sixties found in my dad's allotment shed.

Can't remember what the cane rod was or the reel for that matter but perch bobs were definitely there along with some quills and an old, knotted keepnet around four feet long, diamond shaped string mesh about an inch wide with a loop of line around the top ring instead of a bankstick and a matching triangular landing net handle.

The only thing we ever kept in the keepnet were bottles of shandy in the summer holidays back in the days when it seemed we used to have a summer!

Wish I still had it all

 

[jasonbean1]

woolworths!

 

[agamemnon]

my very first rod was a winfield special set from woolworths. i still have the rod though its much beaten up and has cotton holding on most of the eyes. cant bring myself to throw it away.
i was then brought a 13' shakespear fibreglass float rod and over the years that has seen some fish including pike to around 15lbs and carp upto 10lbs. i let my kids use it now though its a bit heavy compared with carbon rods

 

[Fred Bonney]

I can't remember how I got my first set of gear but I had a two piece 10foot fibreglass spinning rod and an aluminium centrepin reel with red handles.

After that I had a Dawsons of Bromley dalmonte 3 piece split cane and fibreglass rod and an Intrepid Monarch.

Then a fibre glass Edgar Sealey 13foot Black Arrow, a 10 foot + Bruce & Walker Mark IV compound taper, with a Mitchell 410 and a Grice & Young Avon Royal supreme.

 

[tiinker]

My nan bought me my first fishing tackle on my seventh birthday 1953 we went to Sowerbutts in the commercial road shorditch it was a three piece tonkin cane with brass collars no ferrules cork handle about 10foot a small blue centre pin with a very noisey ratchet 25 yards of Luron nylon line a small tin of split shot a perch bobber and a gosse quill and a porcupine quill and some float rubbers and size 16 eyed hooks it cost one pound ten shillings £1-50 in todays money my nan said do not tell your grandfather how much it cost. We got home back to Dalston and my grandfather said another five minute wonder one of the few times he was ever wrong When ever the rod got wet you could not get it apart but it did not realy matter as I walked to where ever I fished no money for bus fares when we were kids if you had money you bought gentles with it .

 

[S-Kippy]

Christmas pressie from parents when I was 11 [I think] so around 1967. 10 and a half foot "bottom" rod,3 piece, butt & middle whole cane [black with red whipping] and a solid f/g tip the colour of toffee. Intrepid Monarch 66 with 100 yds of 5lb Platil. I already had a really nasty plastic float wallet with some floats,hooks & a small tin of mixed shot. My elder brother got me one of those sort of mustard yellow corded keepnets that smelled like all tackle shops used to.

The rod got replaced in due course by an 11ft fibreglass thing from my Dad's Littlewoods catalogue before I "upgraded" to a 12ft Rodrill "Yellowhammer".For my 16th birthday I got my first Mitchell 300 and not long after bought myself a B&W 2 piece Mk IV Avon [glass] and a floppy hat which [in those days] was an absolutely essential piece of kit.

By the time I left school at 18 I'd added a B&W CTM 13, a Peter Stone Leger rod and another 300 and that was pretty well it until well into my 20's. I only became a tackle tart later in life !

 

[john step]

Why are you calling me " first tackle" Think about it!!!

 

[Berty]

My nan bought me my first fishing tackle on my seventh birthday 1953 we went to Sowerbutts in the commercial road shorditch it was a three piece tonkin cane with brass collars no ferrules cork handle about 10foot a small blue centre pin with a very noisey ratchet 25 yards of Luron nylon line a small tin of split shot a perch bobber and a gosse quill and a porcupine quill and some float rubbers and size 16 eyed hooks it cost one pound ten shillings £1-50 in todays money my nan said do not tell your grandfather how much it cost. We got home back to Dalston and my grandfather said another five minute wonder one of the few times he was ever wrong When ever the rod got wet you could not get it apart but it did not realy matter as I walked to where ever I fished no money for bus fares when we were kids if you had money you bought gentles with it .

WOW......your Gran was a real gem, that was a lot of money in 1953!.....i wasn't born untill 55 but your story conjures up a different world, love it!

I used to smuggle the fishing tackle out the house when Dad was at work, but once he came back early and i had to hide it somewhere, he found out and i run away!!....it was the school hols and i went up my Nans for food and sneaked into Dads car to kip for the night...there was a big blanket in it, i didn't know why at the time.

I was about 35 and supping ale with Dad and reminising when he told me he knew i was kipping in the car, hence the blanket!!......"thats why i coughed loudly when coming out the door. to give you a minute to slip out" he said!!

School holiday adventures!

 

[tiinker]

WOW......your Gran was a real gem, that was a lot of money in 1953!.....i wasn't born untill 55 but your story conjures up a different world, love it!

I used to smuggle the fishing tackle out the house when Dad was at work, but once he came back early and i had to hide it somewhere, he found out and i run away!!....it was the school hols and i went up my Nans for food and sneaked into Dads car to kip for the night...there was a big blanket in it, i didn't know why at the time.

I was about 35 and supping ale with Dad and reminising when he told me he knew i was kipping in the car, hence the blanket!!......"thats why i coughed loudly when coming out the door. to give you a minute to slip out" he said!!

School holiday adventures!

My nan was very strict but if you towed the line she looked after you. Your dad sounds like a proper dad what we do not know at the time is he had more than likely pulled the same stroke when he was young thats how dads know whats going on chickens coming home to roost

 

[redfin123]

My very first proper rod was a edgar sealy 11ft match, black rod black and silver whippings tipped with red, lovely little rod. I used an old centerpin which my dad gave me, then later a intrepid delux and thought it was great at the time. an old 3ft keepnet,, bamboo landing net handle. an old rickety willow basket harcork bobfloats, porcupine quills, and a old oxo tin to keep all the odds and ends in. Ho and the best line then was racine tortue, and off we went to shireoaks, happy days.

 

[S-Kippy]

Racine Tortue ! That was a good line.....they did one called Nacrita too which I liked even better.

 

[tiinker]

My very first proper rod was a edgar sealy 11ft match, black rod black and silver whippings tipped with red, lovely little rod. I used an old centerpin which my dad gave me, then later a intrepid delux and thought it was great at the time. an old 3ft keepnet,, bamboo landing net handle. an old rickety willow basket harcork bobfloats, porcupine quills, and a old oxo tin to keep all the odds and ends in. Ho and the best line then was racine tortue, and off we went to shireoaks, happy days.

A very sort after item the red OXO tin back in them days. The other tin much sort after was a HACKS cough sweets tin with a screw lid used for smuggling gudgeon livebait off the fishery.

 

[barbelboi]

A bamboo rod with a archaic pin that I can't remember the name, caught my first tench with the same in 1954 and acquired a set similar to Tatenham Corner. I still remember the day, also my father forgot his landing net and a friend the other side of the bay obliged. I was then trusted with one of my father's rods until 1957 when my birthday present was a BJ MK1V Avon which is still hanging up in the garage.
Jerry
PS It would have cost about £8.10s but Jimmy, James Bruce Snr, was a good friend of my father and it was somewhat discounted.

 

[S-Kippy]

This one ?

 

[tiinker]

This one ?

Thats the one makes you think either we were very clever or the bailiffs were blind mind you it was a different world you could buy livebait in the tackle shop and thats were most of the gudgeon we caught ended up I think we got about a penny each for them and then they sold them on for threepence each.

 

[redfin123]

A very sort after item the red OXO tin back in them days. The other tin much sort after was a HACKS cough sweets tin with a screw lid used for smuggling gudgeon livebait off the fishery.

I,ve just thought of another tin we used, much sought after the st. bruno pipe tobaco tin large size, all top gear.

 

[barbelboi]

I,ve just thought of another tin we used, much sought after the st. bruno pipe tobaco tin large size, all top gear.

And St Bruno in a pipe was the best winter hand warmer of the time.
Jerry