MKIV pecking order

[JerryC]

Bob's blanks certainly were the business, of course later he started his own rod building business as 'the Captain'.
Jerry

[Ron Clay]

I think there's confusion here between the Mk III and the MK II - the former was the double-built rod used by Walker to catch the 34lb common in 1954, and - so far as I understand (Chris Ball, please help!) - it is both heavier and stiffer than a MK IV, with a slightly higher test curve...

When we saw the MKIII at Chris Ball's house he said it was a lot heavier (being double built) but wasn't much stiffer bizarrely.
The MKII was the 'whopper stopper' named by Maurice Ingham which was a lot stiffer.

I beg to differ; the MkII was a ten foot two piece split cane with a test curve of about 1.25lb. There's an article about it in one of the early Waterlogs, including a photo. This was the rod Walker was using when he hooked the nine pound carp at Lackey's Leap - about which BB wrote several accounts, all of which went on to form the bulk of a certain LEP book...

(For the record the MkI was supposedly a Wallis Avon with a foot cut off the tip).

Interesting...
I always thought the MKIII was the whopper stopper but Chris Ball didn't think so so we concluded that the MKII was the whopper stopper but maybe not....
I am sure the MKI was the cut down Wallis Avon though.

Maybe the Whopper Stopper Ingham referred to was the rod described in DMAL? There's no surviving evidence I'm aware of that Walker ever built a rod to those dimensions - merely an implicit suggestion in the letters to Ingham that rods made to Walkers designs by J.B.Walker had turned out alright. If the order was as follows:

MkI - cut down Wallis Avon
MkII - 1.25lb test ten foot straight taper all-split-cane (this rod had green intermediate whippings, brown ring and ferrule whippings and clear agate rings throughout, with a 24" cork handle featuring a tapered faring cone at the fore-end)
MkIII - double-built rod now with Chris Ball
MkIV - single-built compound taper ten footer

then it seems the heavy straight taper rod described in the letters and built by Ingham was not included in Walker's numbering sequence. If he never actually built it, that would be a plausible reason. Ingham clearly did, and seemingly found it too powerful for middle-sized carp (though I'd hardly call ten minutes 'a bit too quick'!). Maybe it was a design intended to improve on the MkII (possibly a simple increase in diameter throughout) that was shelved when the idea for the MkIII occurred?

Interestingly, In Mike Winter's book 'Along Fishermans Paths' he cites his MkIII as being 'a very powerful bit of stick'. The question then is upon which design was Winter's MkIII made?

I don't think the Ingham rod was ever made by Walker. It was supplied to Walker as a blank to make a particularly powerful rod to tackle "Pickle Barrel". It had a straight taper.

As regards the Mk IV Carp Rod, this was, I think, built to the same taper as is described in Walker's book - "Rod Building for Amateurs", and described as a "light carp rod". I could be wrong here.

One thing for sure is that the Mk IV is not man enough to tackle very big carp, especially fish over 40 lbs. Walker was in fact very lucky to land Clarissa as during the latter part of the fight it appears that he didn't have the fish under control. Without Pete Thomas, I believe that fish would have been lost.

I have caught quite a few large hard fighting fish (and lost a few) on Mk IV carp rods and after landing them the rod has taken on the most horrible set.

Mk IVs are fine for carp up to 20 lbs, and double figure barbel

[Snape]

Edward Barder has told me that the Clarissa rod is not built to the tapers in DMAL or Rod building for amateurs which is part of the reason for thinking it is a Bob Southwell blank.
Supposedly very few rods called MKIV are built to Walker's true tapers (when they are built to the tapers they are are meant to be excellent).
Edward has examined Maurice's homemade rod and said it was 'shocking!' But then Maurice was no rod builder so he no doubt made a better job than I would have made and it served a purpose back in the day.

[Ouse Wanderer]

I came across the following in very early post (2011).

Beresford writes:-I think Chris Yates' (very,VERY important) Category 2 MK 1V Carp is a green whipped one.

Snape replies:- It is indeed. Although Chris re-whipped it and altered the ring pattern (!!!!).

Oh My. All Hail The Yates, sane man in a world of tackle nuts. I bow the knee even lower than it already is and please accept that any implied mockery is self directed.

[Ouse Wanderer]

I forgot to put a title on the above so it came here, revealing the fact that I am an idiot. One day I'll get the hung of this posting lark.

[Pallenpool]

A superb thread - arrived at eventually - the joys of this forum - an exhaustive repository.

[Beresford]

I came across the following in very early post (2011).

Beresford writes:-I think Chris Yates' (very,VERY important) Category 2 MK 1V Carp is a green whipped one.

Snape replies:- It is indeed. Although Chris re-whipped it and altered the ring pattern (!!!!).

Oh My. All Hail The Yates, sane man in a world of tackle nuts. I bow the knee even lower than it already is and please accept that any implied mockery is self directed.

No, you've got yourself confused between the Yates MkIV built, or at least finished by Walker, and the MkIII that Chris Ball, not Chris Yates, acquired from Walker. Chris Ball, as referred to by Snape, rewhipped it.

[Snape]

I came across the following in very early post (2011).

Beresford writes:-I think Chris Yates' (very,VERY important) Category 2 MK 1V Carp is a green whipped one.

Snape replies:- It is indeed. Although Chris re-whipped it and altered the ring pattern (!!!!).

Oh My. All Hail The Yates, sane man in a world of tackle nuts. I bow the knee even lower than it already is and please accept that any implied mockery is self directed.

Too many Chris's, Ouse Wanderer. My reply was about the second part of Beresford's sentence which isn't in the quote above. It was:

I think Chris Yates' Category 2 MkIV Carp is a green whipped one. I think the second rod in Snape's photo is the double built MkIII, another of Chris Ball's collection and rod that was 'rescued' from Walker.

I replied: It is indeed. Although Chris re-whipped it and altered the ring pattern so I'm not sure it is the original colour. Apparently Chris rescued it from Walker's study where it was in with a loads of bits and pieces of other rods. Walker was going to throw them away but Chris offered to take the MKIII double built rod of his hands and refurbish it. This is referring to the MKIII in the photo.

[Nobby]

I just learned that the Walker-built MkIV that Chris Yates caught his record fish with was purchased from a man who advertised it in the angling press ...Chris was the first to write to him and offer him the whip-tip rod he was after instead. Chris presumed he was buying a JB Walker kit rod, and was amazed to learn it was actually a Dick Walker built rod.

Now I expect everybody else in the whole world already knew this, but it was news to me.......

[Baskey]

It was a mk1V Avon he caught the record carp on, John carver went in and netted it for him, there is some conjecture as to wether it was a walker built rod, there is a thread on here where John carver explains