A post from darkest Hertfordshire......

[JohnH]

Hello, my name is John Hood and I live in Buntingford, NE Herts. I have been fishing on and off, and with varying degrees of intensity, since a 'tiddler'. As I am now in my 70's, that means over 60 years I have tried most forms of UK angling, but have stayed true to coarse fishing. Early fishing was with all sorts of odd rods and reels my Dad could get for me, reed, split cane and early fibreglass together with old centre pins, including a wooden starback Nottingham style one I still have! My first recollection of working on a fishing rod was to acquire and set up a solid fibreglass top section to replace the damaged one on an old reed cane rod! I have enjoyed working on rods over the years, whether it was to replace a single ring or re-ring an entire rod and varnish it. The oldest rod I bought from new, and still own, is a 13' Chapman of Ware Angaloy (acquired in the mid 60's), a fast action alloy rod with an 38" insert split cane tip - this rod has had 'the re-ring treatment' quite a few years ago. In the 70's, I made up three J B Walker of Hythe rod kits, a lovely 12' three piece split cane rod (sadly no longer in my possession as it was a heavy beast and very underused). The other two, which I still own, were Fibatube rods, a 10'1" carp rod (the Carpseeker) and an 8 weight 9' 8" fly rod intended for lake/reservoir work. I have unfortunately done little such work in more recent years as having "moved on" to more modern types of rod materials, there seems to be less need to do anything to them - a bit like having a modern car really! However, having seen the light and become quite bored with doing carp fishing most of the time - and realised how much I missed the fun and variety of traditional fishing - I have decided to return to it. The irony is that what brought home this realisation, particularly with working on your rods, was after I recently trod on, and broke, the tip ring of one of my carp rods and the act of refitting it (with glue - what's all that about??) reminded me how much enjoyment I used to have working on rods. The upshot is that I recently bought an Edgar Sealey three piece split cane rod, which I believe to be a Nufloat, and have the need to re-ring and re -varnish it, as well as re-seating a ferrule. So enough to do to get back into some refurb work without it being too challenging! Hopefully this experience will encourage more ambitious projects in the future. I have researched TFF as a guest quite a lot over the last few months to enable me to get this far and I look forward now to being a member and hopefully making some contribution as well. I will post soon on the rod I have just bought as there are a few things I would like to ask about.

[Liphook]

Welcome aboard John

[Nigel Rainton]

Welcome to TFF :-)

[Aitch]

Welcome to the forum Sir

[Pallenpool]

Welcome to the TFF Sir.

[Tonytoned]

Hello there John. Welcome Sir

[Ljm183]

John.

Funny you should mention the Chapman Angaloy I was looking in one of their catalogues today reading about the same rod.

[Mark]

Welcome to the forum John.

[Gobio Gobio]

John, you are not the only one in deepest, darkest Hertfordshire sir. I am in Levens Green which is about ten miles from you, Im only here till Dec7th then moving back to Walkern which again is not far from you.

Paul

[Cat]

Welcome John.
Regards Cat