Some stuff I can't let go.

Derek Gibson · Nov 10, 2016

Fishing stuff that is. I can hear it now, ''Sentimental old ******'' and you may well be right.

But in my own defence they represent my personal jewels of times long gone by. Just like some of my angling pictures these items evoke a warm glow, old rods, reels, floats, and some severely battle scarred lures etc. Like those old Jack Hargreaves video's, memories come flooding back of the old gentler times, and old companions.

Do any of you fella's particularly the older end suffer this affliction?

Keith M · Nov 10, 2016

I do have a nostalgic moment now and again when I set up my old MKIV carp rod and Mitchell 300 and have a few hours trying to catch a few Carp off the surface with it but it doesn't last long.

I caught my very first Barbel from the Kennet on this rod back in 1975 and my first double figure Carp from a local pond which is no longer there.

I also setup my MKIV Carp rod with an old 'Black Cat' centrepin very occasionally for fishing in the margins of my local estate lake for Carp.

I still occasionally use one of my old Abu Cardinal 55 reels with a 2lb Diawa Powermesh Carp rod (which is not that old) for surface fishing for Carp and besides the spools being a bit off colour this reel (and the rod) is still in excellent condition.

I keep promising to myself that I'll get my old Mitchell match out and give it a go fishing the waggler but I never have yet.

But these very occasional bursts of nostalgia only happen a couple of times a year as I much prefer to use my more modern rods and reels.

Keith

Peter Jacobs · Nov 10, 2016

If you could see either my study or my sitting room, or dinning room for that matter, then you would not need to ask the question Derek.

My study desk and bookcases contain many of the reels and floats etc., from my youth as well as many photos and drawings on the walls. There is also my old friend's Creel together with two of Richard Walker's keep nets, several Efgeco green bait boxes and a few very old centrepin reels.

In my sitting room there are 4 or 5 split cane rods on a unit, my Wallis Wizard, MkIV Avon and Carp as well as a Richard Walker stalking rod.

My coffee table in the sitting room is a glass top box housing lots of old River Board fishing licenses, some very old carp hook and a Lesney Bait Press with a lovely split cane swing tip. and a few old reels.

My dinning room is mainly only used for some lovely colour photo's of the local stretches Hampshire Avon professionally taken by a local photographer, and my hallway has some nice photographs of the Itchen and the Test . . . . . as well as a lovely old picture of the Rod Finishing Department at Hardy's of Alnwick

peterjg · Nov 10, 2016

Me too. On Monday I went pike fishing using my old ABU 66 reels and mk1 Armalites, don't use them now very often but they are still good bits of kit. Still use sometimes my converted Optonic bite alarms.

Bob Hornegold · Nov 10, 2016

Derek Gibson said:
Fishing stuff that is. I can hear it now, ''Sentimental old ******'' and you may well be right.

But in my own defence they represent my personal jewels of times long gone by. Just like some of my angling pictures these items evoke a warm glow, old rods, reels, floats, and some severely battle scarred lures etc. Like those old Jack Hargreaves video's, memories come flooding back of the old gentler times, and old companions.

Do any of you fella's particularly the older end suffer this affliction?

I'm afraid so Derek and Mrs H is pulling her hair out !!

But it's not going, done of it and it's a good job she does not like the loft ladder --Ha ha.

:w

Bob

terry m · Nov 10, 2016

Yep, me also.

Partly because of nostalgia, and partly because one day I might need it, although in truth even I know that is unlikely.

Most of my stuff gets put up in the roof of the garage, and periodically I drag it down, go through it with the view I may use or dispose of some of it. Only to conclude that it should all go back in the roof of the garage. The result is another couple of hours reminiscing...........

Lord help me!!

rayner · Nov 10, 2016

Idiotically I have every rod, reel and basket/box I have ever bought.
I'm not a collector of anything and I don't consider myself as an hoarder in the slightest.
I hate waste and to throw my tackle away to me would be a waste. I could sell one or two things but that would only be at a lower price than it's actually worth to me. It causes my wife to blow her top occasionally for a short time but it soon wears off.
When it's quiet I liven thing up by saying I need a bigger tackle room.
Everything I have I can't let go, not so much can't as won't.

Jim Crosskey 2 · Nov 10, 2016

I'm not terribly afflicted by this as I have properly broken a lot of tackle in the past.... rods, reels, whatever... so there's not so much hanging around.

What I do find interesting though, is that many of the items mentioned ... mark IVs, Abu 55s or 66s, Mitchell 300s.... at a certain time, they would have been the absolute dog's doodahs of their time, the very cutting edge of what current technology could deliver.

So the question is, will anyone drool over the current "now" crop of shimano and diawa gear in forty years time, just because it's time has passed and it will have been superseded by better gear? Or has tackle - rod and reel - plateaued where it is now, to such a stage that what will come in the next 40 (or 50 or 60) years will just be more of the same?

barbelboi · Nov 10, 2016

Not me, I not a nostalgic hoarder by any stretch of the imagination. There was still a bit of room left in the garage for the new bait fridge and don't get me started about the spare room....................:wh

binka · Nov 10, 2016

I'm afraid that mine are all things that I have let go but wish I hadn't, these include complete sets of John Dean sticks in wooden float boxes from back in 'the day' and a DAM Quickstick float rod to mention but a few.

It won't happen again...

mg:

103841 · Nov 10, 2016

I first fished from the age of 12 and packed up when I was 16, and only just got back into angling over the past two years.

In those early days I had some nice equipment, Abu, Hardy and Mitchell were among brands I spent my Saturday working money on. More importantly though I made stuff, mainly in the school woodwork and engineering shop, float boxes and rod rests mainly. I even packed a Mitchell spool with some kind of filler and machined it on a lathe to produce a nice shallow spool.

All this got stolen from my garden shed years later, along with a Brompton bike too, miss those items immensely especially the homemade stuff, all very sentimental to me.

flightliner · Nov 10, 2016

I have cane rods that go back eons along with end tackle of the same period, stuff that I learned how to fish with. It's never been used since my early teens and unlikely that it ever will. Looking at it takes me back to the tidal trent when my dad would take me on a charabanc to places like Dunham bridge, Laneham ferry, Torksey and Cottem where I still frequent on occasions.
Also, so glad I always took a camera from my thirties onwards as the piks pre digital age are a visual reminder of much of my fishing over the intervening period.

Simon Vicos · Nov 10, 2016

I've still got hooks in packets made by 'Pegley Davis' from the 70s and Perch bobber floats I bought back then too.

still got a copy of 'Mr Cherry and Jim' in its cellophane wrapper never opened

tigger · Nov 10, 2016

About 13yrs back all my tackle, both old and newer gear was stolen !
There where things amongst the stuff that i'd had since being 5yrs old and other stuff of my dads and brothers that had memories attatched to them.

I've since re-stocked and among the stuff i've bought are one or two of my favourite old items of tacke, my abu 501 and 506 to be precise....only snag is, they're not the ones i'd had for all that time and so I don't look at them in quite the same way.

xenon · Nov 11, 2016

oddly enough, came across a mid seventies Bruce and Walker 13 ft float rod the other day at Walton Tackle Exchange (my local shop-proper old school tackle shop-excellent gear and service) and was very tempted-thing was light as a feather! The only thing i still have and use are original John Dean stick floats from the early eighties-still the best sticks Ive ever used.

Some stuff I can't let go.

Derek Gibson

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Keith M

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Peter Jacobs

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peterjg

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Bob Hornegold

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terry m

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rayner

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Jim Crosskey 2

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barbelboi

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binka

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103841

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flightliner

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Simon Vicos

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tigger

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xenon

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