Just been to a GAIA weekend in Llangollen on the banks of the Welsh Dee, great location, great weather and company. We were there to make our casting qualifications much more objective so that assessors were all singing from the same hymn sheet. We achieved all that and more it was a great learning experience. I now know that it has been a long winter and that I need to get practicing with me casting at present I am miles off the mark. still the lads were gentle with me.
Four hours driving each way gave me bags of time to think, its amazing what you think about alone in a car, bills that I need to pay, what’s Susie bought for dinner, has she missed me?
I did focus on other issues what were the first rods that I bought. Well I can recall my parents taking me into a tackle shop in the Shambles in Worcester and buying me a rod. It was a solid glass coarse rod but it served me well to start with then eventually I got hold of a very smart Millward Float Rover which I still have, possibly 50 years later.
Fly rods then caught my eye, Woolworths at the time sold tackle and my first fly rod was a Japanese made split cane rod it did the job and got me going. Fly rods then followed thick and fast Sealey Glane fibre glass, Richard Walker Superlite a great rod and fibre glass. Sea Trout next and Falkus recommended you use a Bruce and Walker New Era. These rods cost pennies by comparison to the rods I have today Orvis Helios, Sage XP and Loomis cost hundreds by comparison. Nice to own but they do not help me catch more fish or indeed cast better!