Senior Wallis Avon

[Paul F]

superb fish, what a reverse bend in the rod, well done on the PB

[Hermit]

Brilliant! Congratulations on your PB and very much enjoyed the write up and fantastic action photo's.

That rod really is the business for barbel!

[Badger1]

Thanks Gents. Yes Hermit the photos came out well. It was quite funny but when she first took off Andrew went for the net to get ready....I think I said something along the lines of......I wouldn't worry about that yet as it will be a while so get the camera out to show the rod action. Certainly a full-curve on display, very pleasing to see the rod and reel taming a good fish in what I think were difficult conditions in that the fish generally were well off.

[J.T]

Another superb fish chap, what a belter well done!!!

[Badger1]

HAPPY NEW YEAR TFF’ers and all that jazz.

Yesterday we seemed to get a slight lull in the rain from 1400hrs until dark so I grabbed the rod, reel, & half a tin of stinky meat. Oh and a net for a quick couple of hours. My fishing over the festive season has been none existent so I needed a couple of hours before getting back to the grind-stone.

The local rivers to me are high as you’d expect, not nearly as bad as other areas but the Kennet has topped the banks in some spots and the river is barrelling through at some pace. After a hour trying different areas with little joy I tried a slack behind a tree and after 4/5mins the rod bent around quite slowly and I then just bent/leaned the rod into the resistance and then it all kicked off. Landing a good fish in that flow was very difficult and I ended going upstream to attempt it after turning the air blue at the first spot. The rod was very much tested but all is good with the old girl, Mr Davis properly tempers his cane!

Cheerio

[J.T]

Well done again chap, a cracking Barbel and I know where you caught it would have been a hard job getting it out so double well done!

[Beryl]

The Barbel is a most beautiful fish, and look at that tail. I've never had the pleasure sadly. I will have a grayling this year but the barbel is two hundred miles away....

[Paul D]

Well done, what a fine looking fish, obviously been feeding well, strange how Barbel seem to grow into there tails, below is a pic of a young one I caught earlier in the year, note the tail size compared to its body.

[Badger1]

Tis was the final outing of 2015/2016 for Opochtli/Senior Wallis Avon and for me. Having not been to the river bank in the whole of Feb due to work it was a welcomed afternoon off. Despite the Kennet being very swollen and verging on angry.....and ugly, it was a pleasant 3 hours. The banks have been breeched in a number of places due to the volume of water after Wednesday and the generally the banks need revitalising with some spring sun!

Bring on the close season. Then some fluff chucking!

[Badger1]

A bit more waffle and tosh to fill the tinter-net up further.

On the 2nd of April I made my way up to Chiswick to the Angling Auctions sale but not really to bid on anything in particular. For the reason for heading up was to pick up Andrew Davis’ latest example of his Senior Wallis Avon rod. The days of ordering a rod from Andrew and getting a call two months later are far gone so when Andrew came to my next rod in his order book I asked for another 12’ whole cane butt rod similar to the original ‘Opochtli’ created back in 2014.

Sourcing the wholecane for these rods is difficult (as mentioned before) and I think Andrew had spent a few months rejecting cane until some suitable pieces came up. On Christmas Eve 2015 Andrew started the work on this latest rod. The brief/order was to create a sister rod to ‘Opochtli’ but with some added…what I would call fancy bits which Andrew would call garnish. But personally having ordered many rods now I feel a little added extras is not too much to ask and really it’s to give Andrew a chance to experiment with new finishes, materials, and basically get paid for it. Time is money and Andrew’s or any craftsman/woman time costs, you shouldn’t go to these people free-loading for their time. Otherwise…..make it yourself.

I’m never in a hurry for orders as really these things take time, the right wood needed to be sourced, the right cane needed to be found and also the right guides. Finding quality guides nowadays is becoming an increasingly difficult task, a few modern sources exist but not always what I’d like on the rod. I also asked Andrew to look into having a section of wood on the handle, the original idea was to have a fancy fixed reel fitting with a Walnut or similar wood reel seat but it became apparent that would not be feasible due to the diameter of the wholecane. The wholecane is slightly smaller than the piece on ‘Opochtli’ but it’s equally as stiff as the internal walls of the cane are thick to compensate the diameter.

The garnish:
• Spiral flaming pattern on the split cane, this is quite subtle as I like darker cane rods. If it was a honey coloured overall then the flaming would be more obvious.
• Wooden section of dark grained wood i.e. a walnut or rosewood on the handle.
• Wooden button.
• Light flaming on the butt section.

A couple of samples of wood arrived at Andrew’s and in the end a dark rose wood was decided upon:



So the butt section of the rod was started on Christmas Eve at a fairly slow pace. Emails, texts messages, calls all were exchanged while the rod was coming along. A few experimental moments came along the way, one photo came through of the handle with a piece of wood about 1 ½ “ in length with an experimental first attempt. Sort of getting there, but obviously not quite right.



The rose wood starting to be turned down:



The photo below came through and it was getting there with the collar to finish it off but I had in mind a longer piece of wood making up the upper handle.



I almost always have the reel set fairly low down the handle (unless a short handle obviously) so having a longer piece wasn’t going to interfere with the reel bands for me. So I had to encourage Andrew to try and turn down a longer piece. This duly cracked in the chuck during the turning. I expected the rod makers wrath again to come blaring from the phone, but quite calm this time. Another go then came the resulting piece on the handle. Then Andrew discovered that turning the cork down was going to be a performance but he got around it in the end, making a very subtle bulge or rather swelling in the cork to stop the reel bands going up to the wood.





The rod was originally due for collection around the end of Feb/start of March so we had earmarked an end of season bash on the Trent. But my work got in the way of that and Andrew wanted to alter a few bits on the rod so we cancelled that with a view of picking it up at Redditch in May. But then we plumbed for the Chiswick auction.

So how has the rod turned out? Well as I’ve come to expect…another quality piece of workmanship from Andrew. A bit different and not the norm you see. Having given the rod a good waggling on the streets of Chiswick getting funny looks off the local hipsters and lycra clad power point brigade pounding the streets….the faint whiff of bulls droppings trailing behind them the rod is real corker. I said to Andrew at the time that it feels very similar to Opochtli, verging on the same. Having waggled the two many times together itt’s amazing how similar the two rods feel. Cane rods are always unique due to the natural qualities of the cane. Obviously never precisely the same as grown and not produced but they really are quite alike. ‘Opochtli’ weighs a wee bit under 14oz which for a 12’ big river rod is darn good and ‘Barbus Barbus’ being slightly heavier at 14oz, so a few drams is the difference.

It’s named more after the beer than the fish but both equally wonderful. She’ll hang until June now, waiting for that first outing.













Both rods: