Apollo Taper Flash

[BobH]

Does anyone remember these rods ?

I had one until it was nicked a few years ago.

Bob

[Mark]

I've never seen one before Bob, but there is one up for auction.

http://www.mullocksauctions.co.uk/lot-1 ... %99_3.html

[Vole]

I have one I bought, used, decades ago, and one I inherited. I haven't used either for ages; glass soon left steel behind, but in the late sixties and early seventies, the Taperflash and Rapidex combo was quite the kiddie; round London, anyhow.
God, they were heavy! Eventually, David Frame showed me some Shakespeare glass part-built blanks - just add rings - in his Dad's shop, and all was light.
The weight of the beast was one of my reasons for being an early convert to barbless hooks: the barbed hooks of the day were so harpoonish in the barb that they required a really meaty strike to set the hook. The 'flash could deliver that, in Spades, but to get bites from Tideway dace, light hooklengths were needed. Strike hard enough to set the hook and they snapped; strike gently, and the barb prevented the hook from going in far; one twist and Mr Dace was away.
Salvation lay in Mustad barbless dry fly hooks - the only barbless pattern I could find then - and a glass blank that could compromise a bit on the strike. Then the pink packets of Pegley-Davis barbless hooks to nylon appeared, and within a couple of decades, they were all over the place.

[PerchBasher]

Ah the Taperflash! I had a 12' model which twinned with an Abu 505 caught me plenty of roach and dace on the Thames at Hampton Court and Kingston in the late 1960's

Lovely looking rods but my God they were heavy.