I’ve been coarse fishing since the late sixties when my father introduced me to one of the many gravel pits that surrounded our house in Essex and I managed to catch a few suicidal perch on worms dug up on the bank and, like the perch, I was hooked.
Many hours spent on the pits led to me hunting specimen barbel and chub on the Thames and the Severn until, fast-forward to today and I find myself living on a renovated 1969 Dutch-style cruiser on the River Shannon, here in the Emerald Isle.
I’ve made my own traditional-style floats for a while now and have caught some decent fish which led me to thinking about renovating and using traditional cane rods instead of carbon. Almost exclusively, I fish from a small boat now so have no need to launch a large feeder 100 metres!
So, here I am. So much to learn and fortunate (god willing!) to have plenty of time. I’ll be avidly researching rod suitability, rod restoration, etc, etc and look forward to embracing all things ‘traditional’. In the meantime, I’m actively reducing my carbon footprint!
Can’t wait.
