Tench rod.”A Closer Walk With Thee” Any comments?

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Olly
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Re: Tench rod.”A Closer Walk With Thee” Any comments?

Post by Olly »

Too true Wal! I was left a rod in my pre-teen days which was used for ledgering in the tidal Thames for roach & bream together with his Ambidex. I still have both but the rod was a greenheart fly rod. Crikey - did it bend with no "guts" - every fish a nightmare to control.

Didn't Hardy make a similar float rod? A mixture of cane & fibreglass?

If I remember correctly some very early hollow fibreglass was very soft (spongy) and bent very easily under pressure - both under finger and thumb and when playing a fish. So the idea of a stiffer butt section was the use of whole/split cane to improve the action. Due to finances as youngsters these were only available from broken cane rods - if someone was to part with them.

Another thread on this Forum with an insert:- ANOTHER ASPINDALE ROD by John Harding.

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Duckett
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Re: Tench rod.”A Closer Walk With Thee” Any comments?

Post by Duckett »

Olly wrote: Sun Jan 06, 2019 1:07 pm Too true Wal! I was left a rod in my pre-teen days which was used for ledgering in the tidal Thames for roach & bream together with his Ambidex. I still have both but the rod was a greenheart fly rod. Crikey - did it bend with no "guts" - every fish a nightmare to control.

Didn't Hardy make a similar float rod? A mixture of cane & fibreglass?

If I remember correctly some very early hollow fibreglass was very soft (spongy) and bent very easily under pressure - both under finger and thumb and when playing a fish. So the idea of a stiffer butt section was the use of whole/split cane to improve the action. Due to finances as youngsters these were only available from broken cane rods - if someone was to part with them.

Another thread on this Forum with an insert:- ANOTHER ASPINDALE ROD by John Harding.
Out of interest Olly, what sort of dates do you mean when you say "very early hollow fibreglass"? I only ask because, having had mainly Edgar Sealey early hollow glass rods secondhand as a youngster (a Sealey Black Arrow 12 foot float rod plus a boat rod and beachcaster), I have recently developed a taste for their early glass (as Wal can testify having fixed 2 of them up for me!) and the only 3 odd things I have noticed are:

1) variations in colour on a rod and between 3 seemingly identical early Black Arrows (which I believe, courtesy of Ljm183, is down to exposure to the sun);
2) the fact that my earliest black arrow weighs considerably more than the other 2 (which Wal put down to the fact that Sealey bought the cloth in and then made their own blanks, grinding them down - that rod has a very steely backbone!);
3) the fact that the 3 sections aren't interchangeable with each matching ferrule being a different size.

Phil
From "... the wilds of the Wirral, whose wayward people both God and good men have quite given up on ...".

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Olly
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Re: Tench rod.”A Closer Walk With Thee” Any comments?

Post by Olly »

Well I started fishing in 1956-ish occasionally going with my father. Whole cane rod and wooden reel, rings of bent safety pins - Luron or braid type lines!

By 1959-ish I was using solid glass rods and hollow glass was just beginning. Buying cheap secondhand hollow glass in the early 60's gave us a lightweight float rod but whilst few were stiff enough to strike and would react similarly to a good expensive glass rod some were too floppy.

Many makers seemed to want to make rods even lighter than "strong & stiff" rods which were obviously slightly heavier to hold and manage. I bought and still have a 1967 Allcocks Billy Lane match rod, my then fishing partner had the Benny Ashurst 12footer. Lighter still but both excellent rods.

Cheaper rods around that time made of thinner glass were very liable to breaking especially on a firm strike or when playing a heavier than normal fish - usually a bream in the Thames flow! These rods were from various makers but enabled us to learn to splice parts together to make donkey top/quiver rods and spliced tip float rods. Even some with spliced butt sections making them very stiff - like whole cane!

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Rutland Rod
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Re: Tench rod.”A Closer Walk With Thee” Any comments?

Post by Rutland Rod »

Wallys-Cast wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:18 pm Lovely looking rod whatever it is.

Wal.
I agree it’s a bobby dazzler !

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Duckett
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Re: Tench rod.”A Closer Walk With Thee” Any comments?

Post by Duckett »

Olly wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:43 pm Well I started fishing in 1956-ish occasionally going with my father. Whole cane rod and wooden reel, rings of bent safety pins - Luron or braid type lines!

By 1959-ish I was using solid glass rods and hollow glass was just beginning. Buying cheap secondhand hollow glass in the early 60's gave us a lightweight float rod but whilst few were stiff enough to strike and would react similarly to a good expensive glass rod some were too floppy.

Many makers seemed to want to make rods even lighter than "strong & stiff" rods which were obviously slightly heavier to hold and manage. I bought and still have a 1967 Allcocks Billy Lane match rod, my then fishing partner had the Benny Ashurst 12footer. Lighter still but both excellent rods.

Cheaper rods around that time made of thinner glass were very liable to breaking especially on a firm strike or when playing a heavier than normal fish - usually a bream in the Thames flow! These rods were from various makers but enabled us to learn to splice parts together to make donkey top/quiver rods and spliced tip float rods. Even some with spliced butt sections making them very stiff - like whole cane!
Thanks for this Olly. I’m realy starting to enjoy learning about early fibreglass.
From "... the wilds of the Wirral, whose wayward people both God and good men have quite given up on ...".

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Catfish.017
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Re: Tench rod.”A Closer Walk With Thee” Any comments?

Post by Catfish.017 »

Wallys-Cast wrote: Sun Jan 06, 2019 11:13 am Quite a few hollow glass rods were constructed with a whole cane butt. I had one in the early 60s, a nice general purpose rod, then again, all rods were general purpose in those days. It was nothing unusual to see lads catching whiting and flatties from the pier with old fly rods :Hahaha:

Wal.
My longstanding sea fishing pal Dave has just such a rod owned since boyhood. A very occasional 'coarse fisher' (he accompanies me on a few early morning tench sessions in midsummer). The rod was made by Abbey, the top two fibreglass sections (hollow) are quite slim and thick walled giving a powerful action that enables it cope with the tench of the 'Old Res' which, curiously, are predominantly Male and fight like tigers!

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Re: Tench rod.”A Closer Walk With Thee” Any comments?

Post by Whopper »

Please remember: this is an Oliver Rod, not to be confused with Oliver's of Knebworth.
Ted Oliver sold the business to a Mr. Johnson, he runs "Oliver Rods".

So this is a rod most probably made from what was left at the workshop when Mr. Johnson bought the business from Ted Oliver,
who sold the 13/14ft. Tench rods completely made out of splitcane or glass fibre.

From the images I've seen this rod looks to me like a hybrid rod with a stiff butt and a soft tip...
Catch your dreams...

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