Angling Museums

[Paul Boote]

As someone who had a pretty good shot (with a very near miss) at getting a British Angling Museum together with both trade and a big-money backer friend's help in the early 1980s (we pretty well invented Angling and gave it to the world, after all), I look at the American Museum of Fly Fishing - Fly Fishing History: The American Museum Of Fly Fishing | Manchester, Vermont - with nothing short of admiration and a rueful feeling that we warring Brits couldn't organize a decent drink in a brewery.

Here is the AMFF now crowdsourcing for funding for a new exhibit / collection, the History of Saltwater Fly Fishing - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/saltwater-fly-fishing-online-exhibit.

Meanwhile, we war or worry over whether someone resprayed a Speedia or happened to have known or met a few people who would feature in a British Angling Museum if we had one.

Oh well.

Every success to you Yankee Boys. You are doing a fine job.

 

[Derek Gibson]

If my memory is to be trusted I seem to recall the Heritage Tackle Collecters club trying to do something along those lines, sadly I think that too never got of the ground. Given that we are credited with being the biggest participant sport in the country that to me smacks of apathy.

 

[sagalout]

smacks of apathy

Well I don't care!

 

[Paul Boote]

What grieves me (and this is just on the fly fishing front) is that I had a man, born in 1901 and the very finest of dry fly fishers well into his eighties in the 1980s, who, on our days together on his fine bits of chalkstream, would casually and not boastfully tell me of how "Halford, Skues and the architect Lutyens (a keen angler who had designed and built his family a house or two) used to come down to stay and fish with us...", willing to be interviewed on film or on tape - not the sort of thing that a member of a family that had long financed aristocrats and the Royals did; these people never go public or break cover.

On the coarse front, I had the man, Gordon Edwards, who fished with first F.W.K. Wallis in the 1930s, then people like Bill and Sonny Warren and visitors Venables and Walker on the Royalty in the '40 and '50s prepared to leave the museum his many volumes of fishing diaries recording not merely the many days he spent fishing (Gordon was a "gentleman" full-timer), but ALL the current juicy gossip about who had said / done what, beautifully and insightfully written by a man who was so much more than a mere hoiker-out of fish.

And there were others.

"Lost in time ... like tears in rain..."

 

[flightliner]

I,ve always thought myself that one would be nice to have been established. The main problem as I see it though is where the funding would be found?, as a body, were so diverse in how we think things should be. We only have to look at how the angling trust stuggles to unite us for the obstacles to become apparent.
I'm afraid our angling history will still have to be looked at thro the usual book or three for the time being , That said I know that some angling institutions do have records and memorabilia of their history(Hull and district) which is carefully retained and added to whenever a chance item presents itself.
Its a nice thought that if ever a place could be founded it would be such a benefit for all anglers to see such collections under one roof.

 

[Titus]

I make part of my living from the past (selling old junk as my wife describes it) but I live firmly in the present with an eye on the future.
I like visiting museums and use them for research so I have nothing against them but I have found that many of the people I deal with who do live in the past are self confessed depressives, I'm not talking about the professionals here but the people who if they were to ever corner you in a pub would bore you to tears with their tales of their childhood and schooldays.

Having said that a national fishing museum would be a valuable resource. What is to stop someone with your contacts from starting one? It doesn't have to be huge. Some of the best museums I have visited have been started by people with passion and a desire to share their own collection, which often only fills a couple of rooms in an average sized house, with other people who share their passion.

 

[Paul Boote]

I make part of my living from the past (selling old junk as my wife describes it) but I live firmly in the present with an eye on the future.
I like visiting museums and use them for research so I have nothing against them but I have found that many of the people I deal with who do live in the past are self confessed depressives, I'm not talking about the professionals here but the people who if they were to ever corner you in a pub would bore you to tears with their tales of their childhood and schooldays.

Reason why I have never had and continue to have nothing to do with the rose-tinted Tweed and Cane and "It all went to hell after 1945." Sets. Always the present, both its good and its bad, the latter always ignorable or instantly to be walked away from and left to disappear up its own rear trumpet.

 

[Titus]

Quite right too. If Walker, Wallace (et al) were alive today they would all be using the latest materials in their everyday fishing and experimenting with the latest innovations the modern world has thrown up.

It always surprises me that the fixed spool reel has never progressed beyond a revolving bail arm. There must be a better way to get line on and off a spool which does not impart a twist into the line or produce an imbalance or a wobble on the retrieve.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

I would urge anyone in the area to take the time to visit River Reads in Torrington, Devon, and also to take a look at:

Angling Heritage - a charitable trust preserving Angling History

Whether or not you think that cane and pin' is for fuddy-duddy old farts or not, there is a lot of our angling history and heritage that is worth seeing.

https://www.riverreads.co.uk/

 

[Ray Roberts]

It always surprises me that the fixed spool reel has never progressed beyond a revolving bail arm. There must be a better way to get line on and off a spool which does not impart a twist into the line or produce an imbalance or a wobble on the retrieve.

Well, you could make the spool far larger and turn it sideways, then throw away all of those pesky gears. You could also discard the clutch, or keep it if you want a really long and boring argument over the merits or otherwise of the Okuma Trent.

 

[greenie62]

As someone who had a pretty good shot (with a very near miss) at getting a British Angling Museum together with both trade and a big-money backer friend's help in the early 1980s ............

Hi Paul,
Why didn't it get off the ground - given that there was trade interest and financial backing - was it simply a 'right idea - wrong time'?

In industry/government/charitable sectors most projects that 'fail' have a 'Post Project Review' where the root causes of success/failure are explored and lead to a 'Lessons Learned' summary - sometimes leading to the 'blood on the boardroom carpet' scenario - but more helpfully to a 'Next Steps' approach where questions like:

• how can we rescue this?
• - if we were starting over - what changes would we make?
• - even - how can we cover this up?
• - is there any education/training that can be given to stop this recurring?
• - who else can help us?
• - when do we try again - with what scope, etc

can be addressed.

I'm not suggesting such a rigorous approach should/would have been appropriate in this 'project' but I think you can get the idea that an analytical approach would help others who may be tempted to re-initiate such an idea.

Tight Lines!

 

[Paul Boote]

It was ready to go, greenie, but you know how prima donna owners, collectors and the like can be....

The men who had charged me with the project, Alan Bramley of Partridge of Redditch (with his very own working fishing museum at Mount Pleasant back then) and our mutual fishing friend and moneybags, Alan Mann - Alan Mann obituary | Sport | theguardian.com - quietly uttered an "Only in Britain..." each and dropped the project.

 

[sagalout]

Torrington

You have to be able to duel with banjos there.

Why does no one in Torrington wear flip flops? Coz they've all got webbed feet.
Why are no crimes solved in Torrington? Coz they've all got the same DNA.

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

I suppose it can be difficult if you have spent some time and money building up a collection to then hand it over some or all of your collection to a museum or gallery.

 

[Paul Boote]

Er, we were only asking for short-term loans of certain items for a long-running series of themed exhibitions, not ownership of them, but some of those guys even squabbled over that - "But my example is much better than so-and-sos ... I don't have a lot to say to him....".

Jokers.

 

[greenie62]

It was ready to go, greenie, but you know how prima donna owners, collectors and the like can be.....

Ah - Logistical Supply Chain problem - non-availability of raw-materials!
Pretty key reason that one! mg:

 

[bennygesserit]

Lord Paul has had the same piece of shot since the seventies maybe he could start you off with that ?

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Er, we were only asking for short-term loans of certain items for a long-running series of themed exhibitions, not ownership of them, but some of those guys even squabbled over that - "But my example is much better than so-and-sos ... I don't have a lot to say to him....".

Jokers.

Well that changes my post - I agree that a short term lone would be more agreeable

---------- Post added at 13:38 ---------- Previous post was at 13:37 ----------

Lord Paul has had the same piece of shot since the seventies maybe he could start you off with that ?

Oh
They're not having that - I lost it one on the Trent in 1988 and it took me 2 months to find it

 

[Tee-Cee]

I don't think we can ever expect a full-on Museum, but we could possibly pinch bits of space within other Museums - couldn't we ?

The Henley rowing Museum is a case in point; Loads of space dedicated to rowing, obviously, but also vast areas made over to The Thames and it's history etc etc so why not a permanent area dedicated to angling? They do in fact, have a couple of cabinets of some fishing gear but it is very minimal and nothing to what it could be. They also have some very good glass case specimen fish lurking in the basement somewhere whci go on show from time to time....

Not much I grant you, but it could be so good if 'they' were prepared to make over a limited area for, say, 6 months of the year............................

ps The HM does fairly well for visitors but it could be better, so could angling boost the figures ?? well worth a visit with good parking and a decent café.................

 

[Paul Boote]

I don't think we can ever expect a full-on Museum, but we could possibly pinch bits of space within other Museums - couldn't we ?

The Henley rowing Museum is a case in point; Loads of space dedicated to rowing, obviously, but also vast areas made over to The Thames and it's history etc etc so why not a permanent area dedicated to angling? They do in fact, have a couple of cabinets of some fishing gear but it is very minimal and nothing to what it could be. They also have some very good glass case specimen fish lurking in the basement somewhere whci go on show from time to time....

Not much I grant you, but it could be so good if 'they' were prepared to make over a limited area for, say, 6 months of the year............................

ps The HM does fairly well for visitors but it could be better, so could angling boost the figures ?? well worth a visit with good parking and a decent café.................

"very good glass case specimen fish"

Caught by the all-time master Thames fisher, A.E. Hobbs.

Hobbs, author of "Trout of The Thames" and captor of both trout and coarse fish in great numbers and in huge sizes, had many of his catches put into glass cases mostly by Cooper the renowned taxidermists. For many years they were displayed at the Brakspear Brewery in Henley, a company for which, as its in-house architect, he designed many pubs. Funny, though I was granted permission to look at the cases twice by and at the brewery in the late 1980s and early 1990s (nice few free pints, too) and knew that many of them went to the new museum when the brewery closed down (became and remains a chi-chi hotel), I have somehow never got round to visiting the museum, having heard that, for the museum, Rowing rules.