the strangest tackle shop!

Talking of tackle shops in another thread made me think of a shop I visited near Preston a few weeks ago. It was one of the strangest places I have ever been in!
We had passed this shop a few times and I noticed that engraved right across the window were the words ''the north Wests best tackle shop'' I thought I would pay a visit, What I saw on entering the shop will stay with me for a very long time. The shop was so small that if you walked in two abreast you would have got wedged between the wall and counter! The shelves where nearly empty except for a few bags of dusty groundbait and the counter top cabinets contained just a few waggler and stick floats and there were just 4 rods hung on the ceiling when I tried to get the owners attention he just looked at me and carried on talking to this guy, so I turned and left.
what still goes through my mind is those words on the window....very odd!

mark

What about this one??

Steve boxes clever with mobile fishing tackle shop - Latest News - Newmarket Journal

There's one in Ballinamore that's just class.I will have to get some pictures of it for you lot to peruse .Its a typically Irish Shop from the sixties or seventies .Sells most things from clothes to hardware to kiddies toys apart from fishing tackle ,however it is all mixed up together on the shelves ,floor and even the ceiling .To be quite honest its an embarrassment to send visiting angler there if they want bait or tackle.

There's one in deepest Wales that I popped into during my inaugral sea trout trip looking for some flies & a bit of local knowledge. To call it a tackle shop is perhaps stretching the imagination a bit....it was a pet shop with a few bits of tackle but the ONLY shop for miles.They had flies but they were possibly the worst I have ever seen and a very poor selection.....not so the dried pig's ears which were available in a myriad of colours.

Quite why anybody would go the the trouble of dyeing a dried hog ear bright blue is beyond me. The smell will stay with me for ever.

Just been talking to my other half and tells me that that shop in lostock, near preston did use to have a reputation as being the best, and apparently it is still owned by the original guy, so I wondered what happened, looks like he just did not give one hoot!

mark

S-Kippy said:

...not so the dried pig's ears which were available in a myriad of colours. Quite why anybody would go the the trouble of dyeing a dried hog ear bright blue is beyond me. The smell will stay with me for ever.

Click to expand...

Pig bristles in various colours - say, red, pink, orange, purple, brown and dark bottle-green (plus fluorescents) - used as the long tails (feelers) of flies representing marine prawns and shrimps...

Exceptional salmon flies if you know how to tie and fish them.

And you reckon this is what's left over ? I hadn't thought of that....you may well be right. I'm just glad I dont work for whoever produces these.

Just a thought, skippy - might they have been bucktail pieces - http://www.bearsden.com/media/tie_hf_bucktail_pieces.jpg - small pieces of deerhide ... much-used for tube flies...? A lot more common than pig ears in a gazillion colours...

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