Fingerprints

Tags

Brentford, Canal, Ceramic Eggs, Grand Union, High Tide, Lara Maiklem, London, Mudlarking, Potery, River Thames, Roman

From the potters wheel, another Thames find.

A few years ago I wrote about the fragments of pottery, ceramic eggs and other objects I would find washed up on the shoreline of the Thames. Most items were of no real value or historical interest simply fragments of a bygone age, items of everyday life that had been disposed of, lost or purposely placed.

The other day whilst walking the river I noticed a large fragment of the base of a pot. Clearly visible were the finger marks of the person that crafted it, the impression of their fingers captured forever. As to the age of this piece of poetry I couldn’t guess but I would imagine crafted well over a century ago, the well known mudlarker Lara Maiklem would easily identify this. What fascinates me that is the way that these fragments of the past emerge from the silt and tumble their way down the river towards the sea. I always wonder who did it belong to, what was its purpose and what stories it may tell.

Last weekend we walked a section of the Grand Union Canal, it was peaceful abs seemed a world away from the hum of the traffic heading along the M4 in the distance, close your eyes and chatter of the birds, the sound of the water and the noise of fighting coots made you feel you’d entered another world. Detailed along the canal are information boards informing the passerby of the local history from the Romans to the Civil War and the canals industrial past – for a moment you sense the spirits of the past, the clash of swords and armies on horseback.

It was clear that someone had been using a magnet to search of metal finds in the canal the band by a bridge was littered with relics from the past, even an old scooter with its last resting place against the wall. I imagine there are still hundreds of items from the past are yet to be found.

The Stort

Tags

Allcocks, Aspindale, Chapman, Dace, Dawson, Fishing, Fly Rod, Hardy, Marco, Pike fishing., Redditch, Restoration, River Thames, sea-trout, Split Cane, Tackle, Trotting, Trout, Vintage, Vintage Tackle, Ware

I recently acquired a bottom rod, The Stort, made by Chapman of Ware, a producer of fine cane rods since 1957. The workshop in Bowling Road in Ware, Hertfordshire finally shut in 2016.

The Stort was one of a range of coarse rods that were made, the more widely know were the Chapman 500 and 550 Deluxe 2 piece Avon rods and the Dennis Pye 700 3 piece Pike Rod. There were a couple of other bottom rods produced, the Peter Stone 600, a 3 piece ledger rod and a 2 piece Peter Stone Ledgerstrike.

The bottom rods produce by Chapman consisted of The Stort, The Shelford, The Amwell and later edition Amwell SP of the 60’s and two sizes of The Hunter, a 12ft and 14ft version. Finally there was the F. J Taylor, roach rod a 12’6” 3 piece but these are hard to find.

The Stort was made from between the 1950’s – 1970’s, made of a straight tapered blank of six strips of dark honey coloured cane. The butt section was 42” with cock handle and aluminium sliding rings, the middle section 42” and the tip another 42” section. The butt ring was porcelain lined, the same for the tip. Early rods were whipped in red and the later ones in green tread.

I was lucky to come across this straight and untouched rod, purely by chance as I was picking up a Hardy fly rod at the time at the seller mentioned he had a few old cane rod. A bundle of rods in varying coloured cotton bags in different sizes, what appeared was a small collection of some of the best names in the business. To view as an Aspindales Dalesman, A Dawson’s of Bromley Burley pike rod, a Marco Elasticane, what looked like an Allcocks Wizard but with no markings plus a nice 7ft light spinning rod that has been renovated, possibly a Hardy Wanless but renamed with restorers name Barrie Willcocks, Westbrook, Kent and dated 1972 , plug & spinning rod. Out of this bundle I decided to acquire The Stort, it was straight and in original condition with the typical light corrosion to the guides. Having purchase a couple of period 50’s-60’s reels I will look to take this to the river before I decide if to have it restored or just leave as is.

Recent acquisitions, on the left the Hardy #7 fly rod and in the right the Chapman Stort.

There sends to be a glut of vintage tackle of the market at the moment and going for reasonable money, I saw another find Hardy Graphite #8/9 rod with an early Sunbeam reel go for £100, as you can imagine that sold pretty quickly.

The Stort by Chapman of Ware

J S Sharpe Featherweight as golden as a fine ale.

Tags

Abu, Ale, Bream, Brewery, Chiltern, Chub, Coarse Fishing, Dace, Featherweight, Hardy, J S Sharpe, Roach, Rod, Scottie, Vintage, Wheatley

Earlier today I was fortunate to take delivery of a J S Sharpe Scottie Featherweight 8ft #4 cane fly rod in fine used condition. The reality of it was that the rod was in fact 3.5 inches shorter than its original 8ft, none the less a very useable rod that I will try out on small rivers for silver fish whilst the trout season is still a couple of months away.

Some years ago I purchase an old Wheatley aluminium fly box that when opened revealed a host of tiny flies with the descriptor neatly written for silver fish. Each compartment indicating which fish the fly was suitable for, Dace, Roach, Rudd, Bream, Gudgeon and Grayling. This small box of flies has inspired me to use a light fly rod in pursuit of coarse fish. Maybe this recent acquisition could be just the tool.

I have previously owned a mint condition Sharpe Featherweight but sold it on to Thomas Turner the notable Traditional and Collectable Tackle Dealers. Having seen this one for sale on an online marketplace I thought I’d buy it and put it to good use. What I love about the Sharpes cane rods is the colour of the cane which seems darker than the Hardy cane rods. The colour of my rods are like a fine dark ale, similar a an able I tried the other day from The Chiltern Brewery, their Three Hundreds Dark Old Ale, a very pleasant 5% Gluten Free ale made in the Chiltern Hills.

The weather for the rest of this week isn’t too promising so I can’t see the rod being used for a few weeks. I will look to pair it to either a Hardy Lightweight reel or possibly a Featherweight.

Somewhere in the postal system is an Abu Cardinal 40 spinning reel making its way to me so I will be looking to compare the 4O to another Abu reel the 44x. Hopefully I will write up about these next week.