An old friend - Part 1

My favourite float rod was bought whilst at University in Liverpool, it was found on a stall at Kensington Market on Prescot Road, I used to have a poke around this stall every weekend looking for a bargain, it was mostly second hand coarse fishing gear but at one end of the stall there was a box of rod blanks, they were mostly the old 'Fibatube' blanks as thick as a broom stick, one day whilst digging around in the box I found a plastic bag containing a three piece carbon float rod blank, I think I only paid twelve quid for it at the time, being a student with no money and new to course fishing, the thought of having a twelve foot carbon rod to target the local parks with was great.

Before building this rod I was using an old ten foot float rod that I used to use for mullet back home, I think it originally came from Woolworth's, this was teamed up with a centre pin reel that I'd bought from the same market stall only a few months before for eight quid (Another bargain), this set up was used to target Newsham, Sefton and Princes park lakes around Liverpool (Now you know why I have no fear fishing the canal in Cov city centre) the quarry was mostly Tench, Rudd and Roach with the odd Carp thrown in.

The old rings

I furnished the new blank with a full duplon handle and sliding winch fittings, I couldn't afford cork at the time and the duplon was a quick fix, chrome plated stand off float rings were the easiest to get hold of and I made sure the butt and tip rings were lined, they were whipped on in black and when finished it looked the business and at a fraction of the cost of a similar rod off the shelf. It saw plenty of action around Liverpool with loads of hard fighting Tench with a few Carp testing the blank, after a move to Birmingham, Crucians and Bream were targeted at Kingshurst lake (That was in 1993, I wonder how big the Crucians are now?) as well as Chub from the river Blythe at Coleshill and then the Avon at Cov before my obsession with the Carp at Ryton shelved that style of fishing.

Changing my style of fishing and having Carp and Avon rods with plenty of backbone meant that my old friend has seen little use over the past few years, I started to refurbish the rod a couple of seasons back replacing the full duplon handle with a split version similar to a Carp rod, not happy with the look I changed it again last year to a full cork with a Fuji reel seat, much nicer. 

The old Trudex should see lots of action soon

At the time I couldn't decide on how to ring the rod so shelved the whole thing as an ongoing project till something suitable could be found. I've settled for a set of Fuji float rings and even though they are only taped into place they look good.