Why Didn't I Think Of That?

I think I'm a reasonably intelligent sort of person, occassionally have wonderous ideas about all sorts of things.

But why didn't I (or you) think of:

The Swing Tip
The Quiver Tip
The Stick Float
The Waggler
The Maggot Feeder
The Bolt Rig
The Hair Rig
The Boilie
The Pellet
etc, etc, etc

I did a story on how the swing tip was invented on here a couple of years back - total accident, it took the drains apart for bream.

Think Ron invented the bolt rig.

I recall watching the swing tip for the first time on a match on The Huntspill. Gave up on my peg to watch a guy have quite a few bream on it.

I had to go and look as he had his brolly stuck in the water at his feet! He had a target board and the brolly was shielding it from the wind.

Here you go - hope link works...

<a href='http://www.fishingmagic.com/news/article.asp?UAN=2364&v=9&sp=
' target='_blank'>swingtip</a>

Thanks for that, a good read.

I was only a kid when I first saw the Huntspill but I seem to recall 400 pegs (200 either side of Woolavington Bridge, both banks) and learning off my uncles about gozzers. Those dead pigeons and the right kind of fly!!!!

Strangely, my best success on that drain was on the float when I somehow caught a few bream for 22lb 15oz for a top 5 position. I never could master the swing tip! Got a write up in the AT but they used my uncle's name instead of mine! Gutted, still narks now only 35 years later! But he was, still is, a bloody good
catcher of fish.

Buzz bars for carp fishing, I may have been the first person to make them for my group, long before the manufacturers got hold of the idea, if only

If only.......

I'd bought a job lot of tents, painted them in "camo" and flogged them to the carp boys........

If only........

I'd bought "last years" poles, rebranded and flogged them as "Margin Busters" to the match boys.........


Etc etc

Chris,

The invention of the swingtip by Clayton is true enough but the story that I saw (possibly in Coarse Angler many years ago, maybe by Colin Dyson or as part of a series on the Witham that was done in CA)(also in World Class Match Fishing by Kevin Ashurst, p. 95) is that as leger anglers were relying on rod-top registration Jack Clayton sought materials that could be sanded down finer than built cane (which incidently is what Peter Stone was also trying to achieve with fine built cane tips). With solid fibreglass yet to be available in good enough quality Jack started to experiment with whittled/sanded down whalebone tips that were spliced into the leger rod top joint. One day he over-sanded a tip some inches back from the end getting a droopy tip. Something clicked and he thought that looks worth a try, and so the tip was born.

Mark

Knowning my bl00dy luck I'd have probably invented:

The Newark Needle Float!

I still regard the swing tip as one of the best indicators for bream and roach legering in sluggish rivers and Fenland drains.

There is no doubt in my mind who invented the forerunner of the quiver tip. It was Peter Stone.

Now as regards what came to be known as the "Bolt Rig".

I didn't invent it as such, but I may have been the first angler ever to write about an arrangement whereby carp can hook themselves.

During the early 70s, many English carp anglers were still under the impression that you had to fish freeline tackle, even at distance. Then there came a whole series of articles about how to hit twitchers, again mostly at distance. I spotted this when I was made a member of the BCSG ca 1970. The Monk will describe how they used to sit there with bobbins or monkeyclimbers on each rod, each hand hovering over the rod like demented western fastdraw gunslingers.

To be honest I was also struggling to catch carp at distance in SA due to the Walkerian concept that carp could only be caught on a freeline, even at distance. In many waters in SA you often had to cast in excess of 100 yards to catch carp.

Then I took note of how some of the local carp anglers used to fish. And catch fish they did.

Big heavy weights, anything up to 4 oz or thereabouts were used. Attached to the line above the weigh was a short hook link paternoster style. The line was fished tight to the lead. Quite small baits were used - single grains of maize corn being typical.

Bent hooks were also used.

What was often interesting was the way of baiting. Not in one spot but all over the place. The idea was to get the carp cruising around looking for particles of bait, then taking your own baited hook, feeling the weight of the lead and line, the carp bolted - hooking itself.

I wrote about this concept in both the BCSG mag - The Carp, and the Angling Telegraph of May, 1974.

I was of course taken to task by none other than Richard Walker. He couldn't get his head around the whole idea.

During visits to the UK in '76 and '78, Eric Hodson told me that many anglers in the UK were now using my ideas and catching lots of big carp. Not only that but the use of "particle baits", eg. grains and seeds, was now quite common.

I explained to Eric that what I had written about was not my idea at all. I was mainly writing about a technique that worked and I thought the carp scene might be interested in my observations.

One very great truth about angling is that it is very dangerous for anyone to claim to have invented anything. If you look back in angling history you will find it has been done before.

Take the boilie for example. The concept of boiling paste baits to harden them goes back a hundred years at least - to America I believe. The hair rig is also very old, it was used for sea fishing rigs many years ago.

Genuine innovations in angling during the past 100 years are rare. The Arlesey Bomb, invented by Richard Walker was a genuine innovation. Walker could have also been the first with an electric bite alarm, although anglers in SA were arranging the line to hold apart the contacts on an electrical circuit connected to the hooter of their vehicle long before this.

And rod rests designed to prevent the line being trapped were in use in SA long before old **** or Maurice Ingham were twinkles in their father's eyes.

I tend to agree about the buzzer bar. The Monk may have had a genuine innovation there.

The bait throwing stick might have been my, or rather my fathers, contribution to angling innovation. Way back in 1966 (God, thats a long time ago) the catty's you could buy were not designed nor intended for firing maggots with any accuracy, so having discussed the problem with my scientist, but then non angler, father he came up with the idea of a plastic tube with a cork bung set at an specific position to ensure optimum delivery of maybe 20 maggots. After several prototypes he eventually produced a superb and accurate throwing stick that could deliver maggots in a tight cluster around your float at some distance. By heating the plastic he formed a slight swan neck and introduced a rubberised grip handle to finish. The end result looked much the same as the bait stick many of todays carp anglers use to deliver pellets and boilies, but only on a smaller scale. My Dad made three or four more of these for my friends and one in particular won several matches with it being able to feed much more accuaratly than anyone else. There was also a bit of a technique for throwing the contents of the stick but I never mastered it!
I also still have a Bakerlite centre pin that he made me on his lathe in the shed.

By the way, I am not claiming that my father 'invented' the throwing stick. It may well have been around before that but had never seen one for sale commercially. Our version with the slight swan neck to add distance to the aerodynamic properties and grouping as the maggots fell to water was my Dad's twist on the idea and no one else I ever saw at the time had anything similar,but obviously someone somewhere else could have made (as anglers did in those days) one very similar. Who knows?

I notice the reference to the Lollipop float in Chris' article.

Now as far as I am concerned, this is also a genuine innovation. But I believe it was invented in Italy.

I remember Peter Drennan creating a vaned float for laying on and stret pegging in rivers. I used one many years ago to good effect.

Then along came the Lolly float.

Guys, if you are into roach fishing on rivers and need a float for laying on or stret pegging for the larger roach, this is it!

The first reference to a "throwing stick" that I can remember was by Fred J Taylor in his book - Angling in Ernest.

He spoke about sticking a lump of stiff groundbait on the top of the butt section of an old rod and with the flick of the wrist, the lump of bait was sent flying a considerable distance.

But this was hardly an innovation as such. Kids had been chucking lumps of clay and stiff mud around on the ends of sticks for donkey's years.

I wrote about this concept in both the BCSG mag - The Carp, and the Angling Telegraph of May, 1974.


I still have your first article on this Ron from 1972 which was published in South Africas Tight lines magazine..

I`ve no doubt someone may have produced buzz bars prior to me, but I never saw any and ended up making around 20 pairs designed to screw into the tops of rod rests and enabling Heron buzzers to be fitted for using 2 and 3 rods, it was about 6 years later that i first saw them commercialy made. On throwing sticks for maggots, I did have a piece of bamboo in the 60s which we used for this, it worked quite well on the local canal, I suppose very little is actually new in angling

My plastic version was also used almost exclusively to deliver maggots amongs the far side reeds on the canal. If I recall the tube was about 3/4" diameter and about 2ft 6" long with the cork bung about 1 1/2 inches down the swan neck. Couldn't do that with a hollowed bamboo cane.
It all just illustrates the levels of sophistication we have now reached with feeding our swims, and detection of bites. Come to think of it, as the old man was into building radio controlled boats in his later years I missed out there didn't I? That said if he had built me a bait boat at the time I wouldnt have had the bottle to use it. I would have been slaughtered and told I was a cheat!
I might be be going off piste here but do you think a huge carp caught from a position where only a radio controlled bait boat could deliver the hookbait and feed has the same ethical value as one caught by an skilled angler who cast his tackle to the spot of his choice?

Radio controlled bait boats!

You have brought up a good subject there Peter. Jim Gibbinson doesn't like them one little bit! He believes that accurate casting is part of the skills of fishing and that the use of bait boats is partially eliminating the concept of catching fish by fair angling with rod and line.

Not only that but my old friend and fishing companion - Trevor Babich, the doyen of the modern South African Angling Scene, is completely agaist them, just as he is against what was called: "Long Line Angling", ie: taking baits out long distances with row boats or canoes.

The radio controlled bait boat - guess were that was invented?

That's right - South Africa.

They used to be marketed way back in the 60s by a Pretoria electronics company. They utilised a large battery powered electric motor and the servos used in model aircraft.

"The radio controlled bait boat - guess were that was invented?
That's right - South Africa.
They used to be marketed way back in the 60s by a Pretoria electronics company"

Before that you used to send your slave boy out with a bucket on his back and when he got to where you wanted it deposited you'd fire stones at him with a catapult

Yes Ron, they invented lots of things in South Africa, including sworn statements by Police Officers in front of courts to the effect this poor little black boy was so upset by his lack of future prospects he threw himself off a 12th floor balcony at Police HQ when the officer in charge had nipped out to make a cup of tea!
Sorry, a bit underhand I know but couldnt resist it!
Back to the subject of bait boats (isn't that what you set sail every day on this forum?)I suppose someone back in 1966 might have viewed my bait stick as an unethical tool which gave me an unfair advantage over the other anglers who had to throw their feed out by hand. Suppose its all relative with time and technology, because at the end of the day I cannot think of any sport where they participants are so innovative in a bid to keep ahead of the opposition.
As for bait boats I watched one lad ,maybe 18, use one on big lake. He put about 10KG of pellets and boilies in the back ,added his rig and baited hook,opened the bale arm on his reel and sailed the lot out to an island 120 yards away. When he eventually asked me to take a picture of him with a 23 lbs carp he asked how big my PB was and when I told him 15lbs he looked at me as if I was some sort of low life angler from another planet.
But then I added that I caught mine by casting to a fish I had seen cruising nearby, under a bush, (a rare accurate cast from me!). How far did you cast for yours I asked! Its like having laser guided golf balls that always find the hole. Whats the point of partaking if not to become good at it like the Monk. Instant carp anglers again....