It simply amazes me when I see young anglers still in their school years who think that the only way to obtain anything in the way of tackle is to buy it.

Even though there are some first class floats of many kinds in the tackle shops, they do not give me the same sense of satisfaction as I get from looking at, and sometimes using, the bird quill floats that I made in big numbers many years ago when I was at school.

I not only made the floats but I sold some to tackle shops at a half penny each and the shopkeepers sold them on at a penny each. That's an old penny, of course, in English money.

For long trotting on rivers these quill floats were, and still are, very efficient.
It must surely be just as easy now to collect moulted wing feathers from rooks, crows, swans, geese and ducks.

All you need to make the floats is a strong, sharp knife, a few small metal rings, some valve rubber for the line stops and a couple of small bottles of special paint, including white and bright orange colours.

For the cost of buying half a dozen floats in the shops you can make yourself a couple of dozen really useful ones.

Any money saved can then be used for the really important expense of buying permits for top class fisheries.

I know that many readers will not agree with me but when you compare fishing costs and wages with what they were in my young days, we really have never had it so good.

To give an example the first fixed spool reels when they began appearing in the shops cost a whole week's wages to buy.

Now you could buy a dozen reels of much better quality for a week's wages.
And, if you think permits are dear, consider this.

When Dam Flask reservoir on the outskirts of Sheffield opened for fishing 100 years ago, it cost half-a-crown a day to fish there. That is 12.5p.

And wages were little more than £1 a week then. Compare this with a typical charge of £4 or less a day on many venues.






John Neville