perch bobber floats fishing for monster perch along side (or in) the locks on the grand union at Stoke Bruerne:

Night fishing for bream and tench using a maggot feeder with a but indicator made of an old swing tip taped just before the first eye of a 12ft glass match rod, using a white plastic piece of board protecting a wax candle from the wind so you could see. Before the days of bite indicators etc etc

Forgot to add my favourite set up of all time:
Shakespeare glass 12′ match rod (can’t remember the name of it), Mitchell match 440, Bayer 3lb mainline, 3AA peacock waggler, 24 swivel, bayer 1.5lb hooklength, 2 number 11 droppers, ‘ kamasan B520 size 20 spade , 1 big fat red maggot. Catch anything and everything on that, 30 years ago!!!

Stillwater blues, I didn’t have a clue how to fish them properly, but I just liked holding them.
My Michel match 440a which i saved for for what seemed like years and stupidly sold when i was in my early 30’s.

Methods, stick floats fishing for dace on the Kennett and Avon. Waggler fished bread flake against the Lillie’s on gravel pits. stalking and Free lining bread for chub under willow trees.

My ASI cross draw. The best box I ever owned.

Stick it in the mud and give it a twist and you were set. You just dont get the same stability with mud feet.

I also miss the Chub and barbel fishing on the Swale. I was a member of Northallerton & district ’til I moved to east anglia 18yrs ago and they had miles of river where you’d barely see another soul.

Methods I miss most are;

Bread punch fishing on the Cam in it’s hey day.

Pole fishing on Weybread Pits for roach, feeding potfulls of hemp to ground bait the peg and feeding bronze maggot over the top in deep water, catching roach at all depths for 5 hours.

Bream fishing on the no1 pit at Weybread pits feeder fishing at distance.

Bream/Tench fishing on the Forty foot drain, I had a method on the straight lead that 99 times out of a 100 worked like a dream.

Hemp fishing on the Nene, my team was shown “how to” by the great hemp angler Peter Jayes, lessons never to be forgotten.

There are several others, but that lot will do for now.

Fishing for tench with cut out washers over hub caps for bite alarms and silver paper for bite indicators at Penns Hall lake before they filled it full of carp… yes I’m that old…

@Swimfeeder wrote:

Methods I miss most are;

Bread punch fishing on the Cam in it’s hey day.

Fantastic roach fishing! I remember many times cycling up the Cam to watch the winter league matches with Essex County et all fishing them, watching Nuddy fishing the punch. Even had a few decent nets myself a bit later in the 90’s. Last time I went up past Milton cut I saw more cormorants than fish topping.

Canal greys I used to love fishing with these floats, these floats made Peter Drennan.

Hmm.

I loved fishing canal greys, but I was under the impression that they “made” Billy Makin.

Agree with Mark, making floats with peacock and needles so you could shot them “flush” for laying-on down the track.

Just stable enough for when the big roach flicked the loose-feed up with their tails before they sailed away.

I bet commercial roach don’t know how to do that.

@Anthonywaters wrote:

Canal greys I used to love fishing with these floats, these floats made Peter Drennan.

Sorry I stand corrected It were Billy Makin absolutley brilliant float though can you still get them ? 😮 😮 😮

As a teenager in the 1950s, sneaking into my local water (Newmillerdam) at two in the morning and trying not to arouse the attentions of Percy the bailiff -5ft 2ins dripping wet but a real tyrant and a nasty piece of work.
Finally getting to a peg and chucking out a leger rod with a bit of bread flake pinched on the line between the butt ring and reel for bite indication, all illuminated by a tiny, dim paraffin lamp. The excitement of slipping the wooden-handled landing net under the first bream, which in distant memory was over three pounds but which in reality was probably closer to a pound and a half.

Baileys Kestrel, yellow groundbait which was about the only ‘proper’ stuff available in those days, Courier hooks to nylon and Fog fishing line.

The unique smell in Ramsdens tobacconists cum tackle shop in The Springs. (a mixture of maggots and tobacco which I can still remember today)

Ah those were the days.

Being able to fish any where on the Grand Junction(Union)canal in the London area without looking over my shoulder all the time.

Used to love fishing local lake for tench and crucians, using Drennan stabiliser floats, early eighties this was…. How time flies.

Fishing the back of Marlow weir from a private garden from about the age of 12 on the float with the latest printed advice from ivan marks ringing in my ears. On hot days going out in the boat with my dad fly fishing or long trotting a big bit of bread for chub on the shallower far side. Night fishing in august/sept for bream when they came down from the weir after spawning. I’m now a keen cook and have become hyper aware of the memory of smell. The smell of that weir in a summer evening along with the church bells ringing will always take me back to those days as a boy. The bait/tackle were bruce and walker rod, dads, mine a daiwa dark burgandy and orange whipping 13ft affair, i didn’t own a leger rod i just borrowed dads old one and came from Chalks the ironmongers/diy store in the high street. The maggot from there was more sawdust than maggot.
I’ve just made up a swingtip rod for this year and the early tests seem good. I think we shouldn’t just leave some methods as past memories. If you enjoyed them then then sneak off and try them again.I’m now off to turn down ‘jerusalem’ take off the rose tinted glasses and wipe away a tear !!

The balsa grey wagglers were made both by drennan and by billy makin I preferred the origenal billy makin canal greys which were great for chub fishing on the river lea especially on the still pounds although the chub were smaller and far more abundant on the river years ago, these days I use the drennen merge peacock wagglers on the main flowing canalised sections of the river lea which are absultely superb and bang on the money for the leviathons.

what method do I miss well stick float fishing on the tidal river lea at hackney marshes for 30lb of dace using the origenal pete warren sticks with a 13ft shakespeare international float rod and reel, halcyon days, as was fishing on the padd canal with the long pole
( shakespeare quartzlite) and caster for roach to over a pound on those red letter days. Also waggler fishing for roach bags of 20lb + on the silver sands at staines using B520 hooks in a size 24

I did think the Canal Greys I used in the 80s were Drennan, anyone else know ?

@Anthonywaters wrote:

I did think the Canal Greys I used in the 80s were Drennan, anyone else know ?

Drennan did have floats called “Canal Greys” as well as Billy Makin. The Drennan ones had a really tiny sight tip (probably 5mm or less).

There the canal greys I was on about, Caster Rob made me think I had altzeimers !!!!

I may also have memory loss …… weren’t the Drennan ones called “stillwater blues”?

I must be luddite …. I’m still using nearly all the same methods (and kit) that I was when I really started in the 80s!!

News – Roach & Chub still love casters under a stick or waggler!