My formative fishing was done mostly in the 60/70's. I would love to still have my old 13ft yellow, fibreglass, ferrule-less match rod, that I built myself, and my Delmatic reel and the box of peacock and porcupine quill floats that my dad made and just have a go with them again. Those were the days, when commercials were unheard of, nobody legered unless they were fishing the Dee at Chester (the C3 Crosville bus with your single rod in cloth bag and your wicker basket) and fishing was free in the Shropshire Union Canal and hundreds of farm pits and ponds. Roach, rudd, tench, crucians, perch and dace in the rivers. No-one up here had even seen a barbel and carp were of almost mythical proportions and definitely not for the spotty likes of us!
