In this new film series from the AMFF, they’re taking vintage rods from their collection and putting them in the hands of modern anglers. Traveling to various locations, bamboo rods of yesteryear are put to the test in both salt and fresh water, and anglers share their take on what it’s like to fish with classic equipment.
I have some of those Late Neolithic Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer offering languishing in a couple of large-ish, long unvisited cupboards here. Earlier this year, after emptying one briefly for an electrician, to allow him to walk in and fit a new electrical fuseboard, I found myself looking at a number of pieces of once good, once much-loved and -fished with, but definitely un-famous cane, glass and very early graphite, remembering what they had caught for me during their brief, me and my definitely cutting edge non-flint modern-fisher tools, moments in both the rain and under the sun, and thinking “HOW THE HELL did I manage to fish with that….? Let alone play and actually land that trout / sea-trout / salmon / mahseer / whatever it was / of well above average size and, in a few cases, “Yer what? Where’s the old Pentax? I think I need to lie down now…” semi-colossal.
Oh dear, the stuff we fished with…..