While I would in no way class myself as a vintage fishing tackle collector, like all anglers I have a few cherished items squirrelled away at various locations in the UK that I just can’t part with.
The old tin shed at my mum’s home in Cheshire is a real treasure trove, for example, and when I returned to angling last year, uncovering some hidden gems among the plethora of mice-nibbled tackle was a genuine joy - mouse destruction aside. (What is it with mice? Why are keepnets so delicious?)
Hanging up was a padded Sensas gilet. It’s way too small for me now, but catching a glimpse of its bright green fabric and iconic white logo immediately transported me back to Fontenay-sur-Eure in France and a wonderful trip to the Sensas factory I made in 1996.
The aim of the trip was to investigate French groundbait secrets for new match fishing magazine Angling Plus. We had lined up 1995 World Champion, Phillipe Jean, and three time world team champion, Jean Desque, to demonstrate how different colours, flavours and textures of groundbait when fished on adjacent pegs of the same venue could attract different fish.
It was a fantastic trip. The hospitality from Sensas owner, Philippe Bonnet, and his right-hand man – an Englishman who spoke French fluently in a broad Yorkshire accent, Steve Dodsworth, was exceptional. And the groundbait feature worked – Jean used a light groundbait on the River Seine and caught bream and big roach, while Desque’s darker mix attracted a much smaller stamp of fish.
Eventually, it made for great reading in the magazine. And for all the reasons listed above, I just can’t get rid of the Sensas gilet. There are way too many happy memories attached to it, even if it last fitted four stones ago!
But the most emotional memories were triggered by the discovery of a little, black perch bobber, found lurking in an old wooden Shakespeare float box on a shelf in mum’s garage. It was the first float I ever used, aged five, fishing with my late father on the Grand Union Canal at Three Locks, Leighton Buzzard.
Goodness knows how many gudgeon and perch that little float has caught in its lifetime. Fished on the canal’s near shelf literally under the rod tip, I’d wait patiently for it to start to shake and shudder, indicating the presence of an obliging ‘gonk’, perhaps a larger, hungry perch, or occasionally a bullhead or stone loach.
I won’t ever use the float again for fear of losing it. Instead I plan to frame it alongside some other cherished floats from my youth – a selection of quills with the tips redipped in tins of orange modelling paint; an Ultra Ducker, my go to float when casting any further than the near bank; and an all-balsa bodied float, handmade by myself when around 10 years old, in an after-school floatmaking class!
Whipping was beyond my clumsy fingers, so the bottom eye was attached with decorator’s tape, before a liberal coating of sludge-brown paint covered the entire thing. A thing of beauty, it is not. But it holds a very special place in my heart.
Tight Lines!
(c) Picture L-R: Porcupine quills, Perch Bobber, Home-made balsa, Ultra Ducker, Carbonyte 1970s bodied float.