The Glasgow Angling Centre really is a hugely impressive fishing tackle shop done on a scale we are simply not used to here in the UK. What I really admire though is that however big the actual shop is - it’s massive! - you can talk to any of the people who work there and they are all passionate anglers who can help out with all kinds of fishing and fishing tackle advice. A great big fishing tackle shop done with the feel of a much smaller and personal place to go and abuse your bank balance!
Their spring Open Weekend is a very different type of event to The Big One Show from the previous weekend, and to be perfectly honest I feel rather honoured to be asked along to these kinds of things. I never take it as any kind of given that my services as such are required at events like these, but I so enjoy talking with fellow anglers and I also love catching up with the many good people I know within the UK tackle trade. As with any industry you aren’t going to really know much about the people and what goes on if you are on the outside, but I have worked within the UK tackle trade for nearly thirty years now and I know a lot of really good people who I love catching up with.
This is photo is nothing to do with the weekend, but I thought it might be nice for a Monday morning!
I did get to waggle a good selection of lure rods I hadn’t seen before, including the new, sub-£100 Sakura Ryokan range of rods which have been developed specifically for the UK market. It is increasingly impressive how good so much of the cheaper lure fishing gear is these days, and these new Sakura rods felt fantastic in the hand. I also got to see another sub-£100 range of UK saltwater lure rods which are coming out in April I believe, and I was seriously blown away by these things. Of course they need to be fished with because the waggle test doesn’t tell you nearly everything, but I know what I like to feel when I pick lure rods up, and both these and those Sakura Ryokan felt right up my street.
I also got to handle a few more of the Westin W6 and W8 ranges, including a few rods which I think might be very interesting for the more “precise” kind of estuary based bass fishing I am trying to get better at. If the lads I know at Westin hadn’t been looking I’d have been seriously tempted to walk away with a few of their rods, they felt incredible. There’s a bunch of rods in the new Savage Gear SG8 Revenge series (our new SG8 Defiance saltwater lure rods are on the market very soon) and I got to see one of the lad’s stunning little SG8 Revenge 7’4’’ 3-18g rod. I am very interested in a few rods from this freshwater based SG8 Revenge series which I want to try in my world as such, but I have tried and failed to get the grownups to send me some to play with so I can’t tell you about them.
I keep seeing more good looking lures from Molix, and the Italian lad who tends to be at the shows with the brand is such a nice bloke. I find it so interesting to learn more about how other anglers around Europe especially go about their (sea) bass fishing, and then how the different tackle companies gear a lot of their products to obviously suit the different approaches. Dial down into the Molix range and you might notice how many of their lures intended for (sea) bass are on the subtler side of lure fishing. Very interesting indeed, and the Molix guy kindly showed me some lures in the tank which was set up at the show. Help!
I also got to see a bunch of the Berkley soft plastics which I have asked to see before - Berkley like Savage Gear is part of Pure Fishing - but nothing ever materialised (my work within Pure Fishing means that I get my hands on a good percentage of my fishing tackle for nothing, but free gear as such doesn’t pay the bills!). I asked one of the lads who works at the Glasgow Angling Centre if he minded me grabbing a few of the Berkley soft plastics and swimming them in the tank. He kindly said fire away and I ended up buying a whole load of them for my bass fishing around here because they looked so good. Do I need more fishing tackle? Let’s not go there, but I couldn’t not buy this stuff.
I could go on and on with more fishing tackle I got to see, but let’s park it there for the time being and instead celebrate France’s performance against Ireland in the Six Nations. That was something else. I am really pleased that we beat Italy fairly convincingly, but when France click and turn it on, it is quite something. Ireland are an awesome rugby team, but in all honesty they were taken to the cleaners and the final scoreline flattered them somewhat. Roll on the final weekend, it’s going to be a monster!
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