TACKLE THROUGH THE YEARS

When you open up this year’s winter edition of Fisho you find adverts and promotions for a whole range of familiar brands of fantastically efficient rods, reels, and blanks. Shimano, Penn, Samaki, Samurai, ATC and Silstar.

Fifty years ago your experience would have been quite different and between 1969 and now a lot has changed in the world of tackle. This article aims to take a stroll back to the magazine’s beginnings and give a bit of a picture those early days, plus where we’ve ended up today. It might provoke a few nostalgic memories for older readers and hopefully be of interest to some members of our younger audience.

RODS

While local company Slazenger had been producing hollow fibreglass fishing rods since the mid-1950s, the 1960s were still dominated by solid glass rods from local manufacturers like Jarvis Walker, Supreme and Oliver. JW in particular had a huge range of models covering all types of fishing… lake, river, boat, estuary and