(published previously on PurePiscator)Tackle Jumble
Every coarsefisher owns more floats than a lifetime could require; nay, even unto the seventh generation. That, so, must be regarded as a sort of normality. However, the endemic float fetish apart and without accusing anyone of being a Glass Case Collector (Boo ! Hiss !) I ask whether we all accumulate other items of tackle for which we have no immediate use?
For someone to whom fly-fishing is not the most important of angling occupations, I seem to have far too many fly boxes. For someone to whom spinning is only an occasional diversion, I seem to have a largish number of spinners. For one who prefers to use a centrepin whenever practical, I seem to own an uncommon number of fixed-spool reels. I do not collect tackle but, by hokey, I do accumulate it.
On my workbench at present there is a broken bank stick found by the waterside from which a brass bit can be retrieved to make a more attractive rod rest of cane, even though I do not need another one. There is the bait box netted from amongst the reeds, requiring only a dab of Araldite on the cracked lid to prevent another contentious maggot escape, the like of which recently revealed that bait had again been stored (just overnight) in the scullery fridge. These, however, are merely keepsakes of fishing days when, truth to tell, little else might have been captured; the least of the spoils of war. The battlefield offering the best chances of plunder for the tackle hoarder is not the riverbank but the carboot sale.
A typical box of tackle-jumble over which one throws an experienced eye might immediately be seen to contain several items of Scandawegian metalware and pluggage which if bought at retail prices would cost much fine gold and which, if subsequently left on the river bottom, would cause gnashing of remaining teeth, grief of the deepest and even salt tears. Presented with a bargain buy of such, and with the certain knowledge that the box also contains any number of mystery bonus items, it is all too easy to find that for €4 one has bought the joy of carelessly chucking a costly Toby into a narrow channel between two weed beds and has simultaneously acquired the custodianship of a forty-strong shoal of one-inch Devons, a little divided box of parts for unknown reels and an array of things which are suspected of concerning post-1970 carping of which one knows nothing. There are the broken rods which are well worth buying to salvage lined rings and other fittings but once stripped seem even then objects too virtuous to throw away. A kindly act like the saving of a forlorn Mitchell 300 from further neglect punctuated by careless handling means that one also becomes the owner of some angler's extensive experiments with home made swing tips and a quantity of Wye leads which if flattened would roof a moderate church.
This is not a complaint exactly. One certainly does very well from carboot purchases: I mention such triumphs as the two-tier Efgeeco tackle box that went into use the same day ; the Lesney crust-press which replaced one lent to a friend years ago and which never found its way home; the waistcoat-pocket Hardy's fly box with its maker's name engraved on a charming little oval plate of nickel; a set of 'All England' bread punches with wooden handles and brass cutters which though no more efficient than the very compact set moulded on the back end of one of my plastic disgorgers (and forty times the weight) are much more attractive.
The immediately, or even foreseeably, useful items are had at absurdly low cost and the stuff tagged 'useful...sometime' or 'perhaps so-and-so would like that' is a sort of passive wealth. There remains, though, the muddle of Mepps which require fingernail breaking work to replace rusted treble hooks, the sand-eels with perished red rubber gas-tubing, the just about fishable reels by known makers that, although acquired for nearly nothing, are not worth the attention of the professional restorer.
I think occasionally of H.T.Sheringham's piking companion whose gear always appeared to be in perfect order rather than the tangle of wire, trebles, bungs and snaps with which we are all too familiar. When asked how this was achieved he admitted to annually making a brown-paper parcel of his whole chaotic end-of-season mess and taking a short sea voyage. At the furthest point from land he consigned the lot to the deep. Nowadays he would probably take it to a carboot sale. And I would probably buy it.
