Fishing Shops: Wow!

Thud has started fishing with his mates and wanted a fishing rod (to be paid back from his wages from the local chip shop).

So I went with him to the local fishing shop* today. Wow!

Hundreds of rods to choose from,  ranging from £18 to £1000+. Not really much of a surprise there, but to me the only thing differentiating them was the price tag.

A mass of other stuff on sale, from check-shirts to lures and sunglasses.

Guy behind the counter was spectacularly unhelpful. Look, you’ve got a kid here that you can really shove in the right direction and turn into a customer for life, or you can be an unhelpful dick. He chose the latter.

So – we bought a rod and reel for £35 and went on our way. Guy in front of us bought a Chubb rod (I think) and a bucket of maggots. They keep for 5 days in the fridge apparently.

Whole new world out there and I just thought I’d share the experience 🙂

* Angling Active in Stirling. Stirling Bull Sales were on at the same time, which made car parking a wee bit interesting.

Yeah fishing is bonkers, I was obsessed as a lad and have got vaguely interested in catching sea fish to eat recently.

The thing that staggers me is how cheap decent tackle is now. 40 years ago I bought some nice daiwa rods for about 30 quid which seemed a lot on paper round waged. I still have them, they are decent,light and thin and ideal for chucking mackerel lures about. But nowadays you can buy similar rods for the same price! Same with other decent stuff.

I haven’t done fishing properly for years, but it’s very much like bikes or any other hobby really…

As in a £500 mountain bike will be perfectly good for most people starting out, it would be stupid to buy an 8 grand carbon wonderbike until you really know what you are doing, and know what you want and are really into it as a hobby.

A £35 rod and reel is very much on the cheap/budget side of things, more of a beginners thing… think of it a bit like buying a carerra mountain bike from halfords..

In terms of other kit, you’ll figure that out as you go along, weights, lures, nets, etc, etc, depend very much on what style of fishing you are doing, so if you get into it, you’ll end up adding to your ‘tackle box’ over time with various bits and bobs.

For clarity they’re ‘chub’ rather than Chubb, which was a former Wolverhampton based lock manufacturer  😉

Maggots will keep for longer than a week if they’re swapped into dry bran, always assuming Thud’s mum will put up with them in the fridge. And even when they start to turn into chrysalis (‘casters’) they’re still excellent bait.

Brother in law has a fishing “VW T6 4 motion”, all kitted out with rod holders etc. I guess it’s the same as having a van for your MTB hobby.

How about a large stuffed pike above your fireplace?

Just came here to say…..

And Away!!!!!!

whatever happened to using your dads bean cane with some string and a bent nail? after all surely fishing is just sitting on the bank in peace with a can and a roll up rather than actually catching a fish?

@rOcKeTdOg Or stood in the water chest deep eating a sandwich!

after all surely fishing is just sitting on the bank in peace with a can and a roll up rather than actually catching a fish?

Yes but to truly relax and get smashed you need some rod holders and electroninc bite beepers… so then you can set up 4 rods, sit back and concentrate on getting drunk!

My boss is a carp fisher.  I’m amazed at the amount of kit. My favourite is the remote controlled bait boat, with sonar, uw camera, two bait hoppers and GPS.

Maggots was the guy in front.  Thud says he’ll borrow bait from his mates.

Guy behind the counter didn’t even attempt to sell a tackle box or bait or anything else.

Chub. Noted.

How about a large stuffed pike above your fireplace?

Don’t worry, Be happy

But you bought a selection of small hooks and weights, right? you will lose hooks and weights when they get snagged on stuff and the line snaps.

My favourite is the remote controlled bait boat, with sonar, uw camera, two bait hoppers and GPS.

Wow..just when you thought you’d seen it all, hahah!

Weirdly I experienced something similar recently (different shop). Nephew getting into fishing, birthday coming up, wanted a reel. I went into local shop with idea of what kind of fishing he does, what rod he had etc and asked for some advice and it was like pulling teeth to get any kind of help. I didn’t really have a budget in mind but was happy to buy something middle of the road as long as it wasn’t multiple hundreds and still struggled.

I fished a little as a kid off the pier and a little bit of trout fishing but lacked the patience for it. Now I actually quite fancy disappearing off to somewhere quiet, sitting with a thermos, comfy chair and a good book. Kind of think actually catching fish would be an inconvenience!

Guy behind the counter didn’t even attempt to sell a tackle box or bait or anything else.

Reminds me of the owner of a small bike shop I went to once, and only once, he was a soulless old git! lol!

I mean, it’s good he didn’t try to upsell you with a load of stuff you might not need as a beginner, but I’d have thought they should at least make the effort to sell you a cheap beginners kit of hooks, weights, a disgorger, etc.

I’ve got a couple of classic centre pin reels, including a Dave Swallow custom job I bought from him personally many moons ago. It is the Chris King of reels, if I set it spinning now it might have stopped by breakfast tomorrow.

Absolute joy to use, especially for trotting for the  aforementioned chub

Also got a couple of Abu Cardinal 55s, beautiful brass gears and worth a few bob now

Lots of pike lures in various guises, a Heddon crazy crawler and boxes of hi-los

But you bought a selection of small hooks and weights, right?

No. Guy didn’t mention that :/

I got given a fishing rod, hooks and a bag for a birthday once. I must have been 7 or 8. Went to local shop for bait with my mum and a  tub of maggots duly purchased. Obviously I took the lid off to have a look at them. Guess what, the pot upended in the back of the car somehow and the lid wasn’t on properly.  It was a Mini, a week later it was full of flies.. oops!

At least he didn’t cough and land a great big greeny on your jumper, like the owner of my local tackle shop did

Or stood in the water chest deep eating a sandwich

From the username I take it you’re shark fishing?

my mate is a keen fly fisher – someone with all the gear etc is apparently a “tackle tart”

No. Guy didn’t mention that :/

Much like with mountain biking, the guy that never has a spare tube or puncture kit… his mates will soon get pissed off if he keeps robbing hooks and weights from them… I mean they are very cheap really and it might be his mates have an abundance of stuff like that and don’t really care.. but still…

I took up fishing again after many years. I was amazed at the amount of kit and techniques available now. Went into one fishing shop- to be honest they are thin on the ground now-and  conmented on the variety of gear on sale and the lady behind the counter admitted that the object of the exercise was to catch the fishermen rather than the fish! I now have a car full of gear, half of which I don’t probably need. All the gear-well, as with bikes you know the rest.

Maggots don’t last quite as long when you put handfuls in your pocket then go into town with your mum the next day, pulling them out in M&S and showing her maggots. Sorry mum.

TBF I’m quite pleased there are actual kids going fishing. Good on them.

kormoran(t)
…got vaguely interested in catching sea fish to eat recently.

Username nearly checks out.

…but to me the only thing differentiating them was the price tag.

I dare say most anglers would look at bikes the same way.

John Norris in Penrith. Absolute porn shop for fly fishers.

My dad used to take me fishing when I was a nipper, perhaps 8, 9, 10 or thereabouts. I had a little two-piece fibreglass rod, dad had a two-piece steel rod, that he’d made himself, out of a tank radio aerial! It’s still out in the shed, it’s easily between 70-80 years old, ‘cos I’m 70, and he almost certainly made it just after the end of the war.
I lost interest after he died, plus the river was straightened out through Chippenham, and downstream, where a bend with a big pool with lots of lilies attracted lots of bigger fish, was removed.

out of a tank radio aerial!

Impressive!

I once liftshared with a guy who was into carp fishing. I used to find it fascinating looking through his magazines. Like mbuk but with carp.

He would spend weeks planning a trip, take all sorts of gear including a special armchair and special wheelbarrow to lug it all from his car to the riverbank. He would then sit there all weekend in full camo, including overnight, box of ginsters by his side.

And after all that he would catch…. nothing! All about the challenge apparently.

And if he did catch something it would be the same fish he caught last time, which he knew by name, and was older than me.

Then he’d come home and spend every night arguing about Brexit on CarpTrackWorld.

And people think mountain biking is weird 🙂

kormoran(t)

…got vaguely interested in catching sea fish to eat recently.

Username nearly checks out

In Deutschland ist das so!

Growing up on a riverbank, I got the fishing thing early on. I soon moved to fly fishing motivated by having learned to fly tie and the prospect of minimal tackle.  Also no bait faff.  So little needed, and it is still easy to pack a few items when off into the hills.

That of course was the riverbank.. I did get obsessive about tying materials though.

They keep for 5 days in the fridge apparently.

They do. Just make sure the lid is on properly. My mum was horrified when opening the fridge one morning..

Jameso, regular maggot drowner when age 6-13

I fish (too infrequently). Its the polar opposite in terms of riding but use them both to just switch off from the day to day – from a mental health perspective it does me the world of good. An afternoon here and there staring at a rod tip or a float, lost in my thoughts.

Had loads of gear when I was younger, then grew out of fishing but kept a few bits when we went on holiday and stuff and got back into it just before Covid hit. A house move meant I’m surrounded by amazing places to fish from wide slow rivers full of bream etc to small, fast shallow rivers with some amazing barbel, old estate lakes and commercial carp puddles. Its like choosing what/where to ride – do I want an old skool XC ride (estate lake/river) or do I want to just get decent fish after fish (carp puddle).

You can spend a LOT on gear – as mentioned above, I don’t fish anywhere near as much I want to due to a million other commitments so I tend to get the mid range stuff from my local tackle shop which compared to experiences mentioned above, is absolutely amazing (York Tackle if anyone is in the area and wants advice or stuff).

Holiday on Friday to Cornwall and it just so happens the place we’re staying has a lake AND a section of small river. Convenient 🙂

They do. Just make sure the lid is on properly. My mum was horrified when opening the fridge one morning..

You also need to make sure the lid is on when in the back of a car. The sight of a pint of maggots crawling around free in the back of my dads car when I was about 14 was something I’ll take to the grave 😀

I fish very infrequently now. I was a keen match fisherman as a kid, so took kit and bait prep seriously back then. But every now and then I need to refresh things, get up to date on new baits etc and the local fishing shop is great for a chat with the staff there. The rods, pole, reels etc from bitd are still fine and relevant. Obviously old line is binned, and some crystal and some peacock wagglers have died. Pole floats are all fine, despite being fragile things from the start.

But, yeah I think the relative cost of some tackle has dropped. I remember things like Optonic bite alarms (night carp stuff) being really expensive, so I made my own version for my school CDT project. But now you can get something usable for £20. Poles look to be similar actual cost, so cheaper in relative costs now. Bitd there were match poles (11m +) and short whips. Now there are also margin and carp poles. Match rods used to be fast action -stick floats or through action for wagglers only. Now there are shorter pellet waggler rods for carp. So there has been a lot of specialist kit developed over this time, I guess to suit all the well- (carp) stocked commercial day venues that have sprung up over that time.

I think a good option would be for your son to join the local club as it will give access to all the club venues and end up far cheaper than paying day rates at commercial venues. He can also then learn from some more experience folk there and gear his tackle and techniques to those club waters so expensive shopping mistakes can be avoided.

My step-grandad who is Japanese had a beautiful selection of fishing gear which must have dated from the 1980s or early 90s – I dread to think how much that was new. I’ve no idea what happened to it after he died 🙁 . Is there a retrobike fishing equivalent I wonder?

I do love the fact that Shimano share some product names between fishing and cycling (XTR, Ultegra).

Also got a couple of Abu Cardinal 55s, beautiful brass gears and worth a few bob now.

Ooooh! There were quite a few folk bitd with the lusted-after Mitchell Match with the auto bail. Well beyond my pocket-money and part-time job pay grade! But it was the era of composite stuff getting cheaper so I bought shimano reels and they still work fine. Need some maintenance, but not a lot.