I freely admit that before I first became interested in cane poles, if I'd thought about them at all, I probably assumed that they were all made by Sowerbutts. Indeed in the back of my mind Sowerbutts was a name akin to that of Hoover or Thermos in that it was synonymous with the product. Among my contemporaries they were always referred to as Sowerbutt's Poles, never cane poles or Evans poles.
I have one or two named poles now. The Sowerbutts and the Evans have all the kudos and with good reason. They really are superb examples of the maker's art. Do they catch more roach than my motley selection of unnamed, sometimes wobbly, often eccentrically tapered and ferruled poles? Absolutely not. Are they easier to fish with then? Not noticeably. Are they now too posh to push? Perhaps.
These are mere personal observations however the object of this piece is not to run down the named, but to shine a small light on the often overlooked contribution to the cane pole market, as was, of makers who maybe gave the less affluent angler a chance to fish a fixed line at distance.
I am no expert in this matter, there are many on here who know more than I do, but it seems to me that there are several routes that unnamed poles might end up seeing action on the Thames and the Lea. So, for the little that they are worth, here are my thoughts and suggestions on those routes.
1) Trade supplied - some less well known tackle shops may have been making or finishing poles on a semi-professional basis. Equally likely would have been the sale of unlabelled poles made by established 'names'. These may have been seconds or made for the trade possibly with lower quality cane.
2) Homemade poles - I've no idea when the market for kits developed but as I have seen poles of somewhat amateurish build quality with metal components of much higher quality, I presume the fittings at least were available off the shelf. I suspect large bamboo canes of reasonable quality may have been more readily available back then than they are now but most working men would surely not have had the buying power to secure enough poles to select the better examples, hence the somewhat variable shape and straightness of the finished product. I wonder if that and the lack of specialist tooling to neatly clean out the insides might give us a clue in that regard. So homemade poles were likely to be one more source of unnamed poles.
How many times has this early, possibly pre-1st world War, example been refinished?
3) Having spoken to somebody who used to work for one of the cane rod building companies, I was made aware of what he described as Friday afternoon or Saturday rods. These would be made up by employees after hours for family, friends and presumably pin money. Indeed, I have a 'Wizard' believed to have been made in this way. All components are identical to the official product but clearly it is unattributable to that maker. This still is and always has been common practice in factories across both the land and the generations. I worked for many years in motor manufacturing in Coventry and there is more than a little truth in the words of the song, 'I took it one piece at a time, it didn't cost me a dime!' Having heard from several sources of an e type jaguar built this way (including the bodyshell) I doubt a fishing pole would have proved an insurmountable problem. Maybe a stiff leg for five days would do it! Done surreptitiously, decent cane may have been used, with the managements blessing materials not suitable for top quality retailable poles might have been offered or permitted.
4) Everybody on this forum will be familiar with the refurbishing of cane rods and poles. For long periods in the past, cane poles were not desirable items. As they were quickly abandoned in favour of fibreglass and their value plummeted, many were abandoned to their fate often as bean poles. Others were simply abandoned and dumped. Those that were kept would most likely be pretty tired and might well have been refinished, losing original labels, fittings and whippings as they went. I have a very old pole that was almost certainly refinished in the distant past with whippings in the unlikely combination of yellow, jasper and clear nylon. Another still bares the evidence in its many nooks and crannies of thick orange paint. It is easy to see how even a high quality pole might lose its pedigree and become an unnamed stray.
Who knows where this one came from? Bought, I believe among a job lot of old sections by fellow forum member Tom (Delaminated). He stripped it of a thick layer of bright orange paint and refixed some of the ferrules before passing it on to me
After much work and an awful lot of thread and still with some orange paint left in the natural crevices of the bamboo as a mark of its history, it's back on the bank...
...and still doing what it was designed to.
5) And to continue with the canine metaphor many posh poles and their less regarded cousins have become mongrels. As their popularity has risen once more precious sections have been unearthed here and there and combined to make generic cane poles, both in good faith and perhaps, dare I suggest, to add value. A bag or a butt cap could make the difference between one and several hundred pounds to the unwary. Aside from anything else many original poles sported whalebone tips few of which survive and those that do are always going to be under threat in these days of 'carp with everything'. New tip sections made from split cane are frequent additions or replacements and why not? Anything that brings these wonderful angling tools back into use has to be good thing. A spare for daily use is an excellent way of preserving a more fragile original.
A discarded fly rod top section may well have saved the original lancewood tip of this, less than highly regarded, Fields of Highgate pole from destruction while bringing this five pound plus tench to the net.
So there are a few considerations to ponder on if you so choose. The origin of these hobo poles is only really of academic interest to me. It is the resurrection and continued use of something handmade, by long forgotten men that really captures my imagination and as I sit in the chilly dawn of an autumn day with the mist rising all around it is easy to feel the presence of those men looking over my shoulder and wondering at my incompetence.
Most of this piece has been guesswork and speculation with a moderate amount of knowledge borrowed from those who possess more of it than I do, and of course I'd welcome any further input on the subject. Despite owning a couple of expensive poles, I get the most enjoyment from my rag tag collection of anonymous ones which owe me little and wear their crusty coating of dry breadpaste as a badge of honour and honest toil. More than anything to me they represent the craft of many men over their now lengthy histories. Even the newest are unlikely to be less than 60 years old and many different hands have wielded them on a variety of pools and rivers with varying degrees of expertise in pursuit of roach, bream and sundry other species. They will occasionally have been surprised and tested by barbel, chub, tench and carp and those that are still here today, should be valued and kept working as they were always meant to do.
Let's hear it for the poles with no name, totems to the men who made them and who should not be forgotten?
